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Two elements make inSITE97 truly important. First: it presents art outside of its usual contexts, such as galleries and museums. Second: it encourages the idea that where the art is -- the "site" -- should determine what the art is. In combination, these elements present a profound challenge to the fundamental tenets of Modern Art; most particularly, to the idea of "art for art's sake." The character of this challenge is evident in the difference of experience encountered by an artist who contemplates doing a work at a site in "the real world," versus an artist who goes into a studio and confronts a blank canvas. Because the real world is nothing like a studio, and no place on earth is anything like a blank canvas, the rules, and the outcome for art, have to be different. InSITE97, with many works by many artists at many locations, explores the implications and possibilities this new paradigm opens. A BIT OF BACKGROUND The exhibition's title, "InSITE97," makes clever use of the term "sitework," a word which came into use in the artworld use in the late 1960s to describe the efforts of artists who would do things like dig a trench in the desert, pile rocks in a lake, and erect steel poles in the middle of a prairie to attract lightning. The term proved useful partly because of its somewhat snooty suggestion that the art was happening "off-site;" i.e. not in a gallery or museum. More importantly, though, it acknowledged that, with this art, the site and the art are inseparable. A related term, "installation," came into use at roughly the same time, probably borrowed from existing artworld practice which speaks, for example, of "installing" an exhibition. Applied to art, then, the term describes works that are made either to fit into a space, like a carpet fits into a room; or to occupy a space, like a room's furnishings, decor, paintings, etc.. As this suggests, "installation" describes works in which the space is largely a passive participant in the art. As a result, this art can usually be picked-up, transported to another space, reconfigured to fit the new situation, and remain essentially unchanged. Art of this type is widely seen in, and widely embraced by, contemporary museums and galleries. There, all those who come upon this work, having chosen to be in the museum or gallery, already know that what they're seeing is "art," even if they don't understand or like what they see. In contrast, an artist creating a work at a site outside of this context cannot assume that people will make any connection at all between the work and "art." In "the real world," most people have never given art a second thought, let alone a first one. Yet these are the people whose world siteworks chose to enter. What to do? How to do it? This is what inSITE97 asks. The exhibition offers the artists' answers.
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