We couldn’t help but get into a conversation about Robert Irwin’s notion of site-determined vs. site specific at Tilt Gallery and Project Space. Rather than saying I will make a piece just for this space and call it site-specific, Irwin went into a space and let the space suggest the piece, hence site-determined. (Our conversation, of course, is filtered through the artist’s seminal essay on site, Being and Circumstance and Weschler’s book on Irwin’s life Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees.) Irwin’s work (maybe hanging a transparent scrim across the room at eye-level) dealt with how we perceive a space, how light and space interact.
In some contexts the word “notice” is just a step away from the word “perceive.” A visit to Alison Owen’s installation at Tilt Gallery and Project Space is about noticing. For the viewer, it’s a treasure hunt. Once you notice that some of the shadows you see are painted on the wall, you begin to look for more. Once you see that she has built out the white molding where the floor meets the wall several layers thick, you begin to look high and low. In several places she tacks 1/4-inch thick wood scraps to the wall, painted wall-white or stained to match the posts and beams, creating haphazard line or extension. Sometimes there is a strip of stripey paper or paint directly on the wall. What comes of it all is an appreciation for the thoroughness with which the artist herself has noticed the elements of the space (outlet, conduit, beam, stair, partition, plinth). These are elements we’d be inclined to pass over if her interventions didn’t comment on them, very subtly amplifying them until they’re just audible at dog-hearing levels. (more…)
