A work of art is a work of art, people say. But we know thereis a context as well. And if we look at our museums of modern art wesee a lot of attention is given to his peripheral realm. Art isvulnerable to its context. It was this notion that Adorno brought to hisoften cited remark about the museums as the family sepulchers ofworks of art (T.W. Adorno, 'Valery Proust Museum').
We are familiar with the vocabulary of 'site-specific', a termstrangely enough mostly connected with the public art debate. Themuseums with its white walls are not recognized as sites with thespecific meaning of isolation. as places where living art is reduced toautonomous entities in a so called 'neutral' environment. Apart fromthe question if this viewpoint is right or good, to move a work of artfrom artist's studio to exhibition place should have its effect on thework itself.
Site-Specificity, a technique in which context was incorporatedinto the work itself, originally developed to counteract theconstruction of ideological art objects, purportedly defined byindependent essences, and to reveal art's determination by itsinstitutional frame...' (Rosalyn Deutsche, 'Uneven Development', in:'Out of Site')(thanks to Renée Green).
As a consequence of the institutional critique debate ofthe last two decades, the term 'institutional' has got a more globalthan specific meaning. But in this change of connotations one theparticular thing became clear: site-specificness was an ideologicaland institutional term in itself. Under the pressure of this claim ofsite-specificity the site-specific art work represented more and more thesite itself. Shortly, it became an illustration of its context.
'It could be argued', Stephen Prina said, 'that this isprecisely what the cultural institution performs: acts that transform astate, condition or quality of being into an object, from active topassive state; a meaning elusive in life is accomplished in death. Iwould prefer, however, to cite this transformational instance as anexample of an institution exerting its productive capabilities,demonstrating its will to narrate.' (Stephen Prina: 'We RepresentOurselves to the World: Institutional Narritivity', in: lectures 1992,Witte de With, center for contemporary art, Rotterdam)
As important narrative features he mentions these three:
I also agree with his observation that since 'all cultural work,whether consciously or not', could be considered as 'work on and ofrepresentation, a reflection on the mechanism is necessary.' Thatmechanism is: 'the reduction of meanings to stories.'
This was why Stephen Prina asked the rhetorical question: 'Inwhose interest is it to protect context, as though it were a sovereignstate?' In an interesting proposal to reformulate the site-specificity heintroduced the new realm: system-specific, as an better word forsite-specific. System-specific, he said, is 'a way of working thatanalyzes and employs the procedural structures that inhabit a site,with the full recognition that these structures can be displaced,aligned with other discourse and practices, be wrested from theircontext so their full potential may be explored, or not.'
At last I would like to quote the man who thought in pieces,Marcel Mauss: 'There is always a moment when, the science of certainfacts not yet being reduced tot concepts, the facts not even beinggrouped together organically, these masses of facts receive thatsignpost of ignorance: 'miscellaneous'. This is where we have topenetrate. We can be certain that this is where there are truths to bediscovered: first, because we know that we are ignorant, and second,because we have a lively sense of the quantity of the facts.' (MarcelMauss: 'Techniques of the Body', in: 'Incorparations') (thanks to SimonLeung)
Being aware of the (positive and negative) qualities of theWWWsystem in which the work is presented, make the production andreception of a work of art into an interesting, a never ending,incomplete, experience.