What the SITE has to Say
Review of SITE Seeing at Charlotte Street Foundation
Although the exhibition intended to listen to the defining characteristics of the room, many of these characteristics remained in the background — the same as they always were in many other exhibitions.
What is a site?
For one, a site contains endless possibilities as materials and structures interact and communicate to imply what the final product will look like. At the same time, it is the particular implementation of the builder’s process to realize an idea.
SITE Seeing, currently on view at Charlotte Street Foundation, showcases “artists working at the intersection of architecture, site specificity, abstraction, and perception” to explore ways artists construct new forms and invigorate spaces. Curator Caleb Taylor selected artists from Kansas City, Chicago, Portland, New York, and Los Angeles practicing painting, installation, assemblage, printmaking, and other disciplines to go beyond the “practice and appropriation of architectural aesthetics” and arrive at the universal truth that “all manners of art making are an act of construction.”
So, did the SITE prove the point?
We saw a bright space with wooden floors and white walls. Above us sat white ventilation pipes, a sunroof window, steel ceiling structures, and overhead lighting. We saw more of the building’s industrial structure through the vertical opening on one wall.
On the opposite wall, a French winder oversaw the courtyard bathing in the peaceful afternoon sun. Atlas (II), handmade book, paper, and wood, created by Corey Antis, sat in a display case before us, marking the beginning of our site tour.
Overall, the pieces in the exhibition were diverse and quite interesting. Some explored the balance and composition in a limited space, whether paper or canvas, in abstract manners. Others created quiet conversations between raw materials while the audience pondered the question: what could these materials become?
Specifically, artist Cybele Lyle’s Some of All Parts invited the viewer to take a fragment of the artwork from the piece home. In exchange, take a photo of both sides of the piece once you are home and email the pictures to the artist. As a result, the viewer participated in the artist’s process of constructing an art piece.
While the artworks perfectly explained how each piece is a construction site created by the artist, the exhibition failed to fully leverage the gallery space’s potential and felt more like an underdeveloped concept.
For one, the only piece that truly interacted with the existing space was Untitled (radiator x2) by Marcie Miller Gross, created in response to “the architectural opening directly above her installation.” It also resonates with Corey Antis’ piece as the materials Antis used have associations with Gross’ work, similar to how materials scattering around a construction site jointly imply the final product. Of course, you could consider the scaffolding installation painted white somewhat in resonance with the gallery’s ceiling and pipework, which were also white. Regardless, the charming industrial elements exposed in the gallery space, the overhead lights shining so brightly down on the viewer (imagine a textile piece suspended in mid-air and what extraordinary shadows it may cast), and the spotless white walls humbly stayed aside. Although the exhibition intended to listen to the defining characteristics of the room, many of these characteristics remained in the background — the same as they always were in many other exhibitions.
That being said…
Did the pieces invigorate the gallery space and highlight the core concept of art-creating is construction as intended? Absolutely.
Yet did they sufficiently respond to the space they temporarily resided in? Let’s say we saw something with many possibilities for future developments.
SITE Seeing will remain on view at Charlotte Street Foundation through Saturday, June 24, 2023. The exhibition is free to the public and features artists Corey Antis, Avantika Bawa, Dan Devening, Marcie Miller Gross, Mie Kongo, Cybele Lyle, Armin Mühsam, Erin O’Keefe, Christopher Spaw, and Caleb Taylor.
