사이트 담론의 역사적 고찰과 비전

Site as a Discourse: Theoretic Development and its Vision

A piece of art works is always involved with a place where it is exhibited. It was built-in project from the beginnings, but through the modernization, a distinction took place between the art work and the space it is displayed. Since the Minimalism artists, questions on the real function of the space where the viewer experienced art works, were raised. In his writings, Robert Smithson explored the meaning of site and he differentiated it from the secondary, exhibitory space, so-called ‘non-site’. Site represents the historic geological sedimentation and it reveals the decay which transforming the energy from the good to bad, useful to obsolete. Smithson’s argue gets even more power after other critics and art-historians developed the discourse of the ‘site’ and a number of art works were produced as either monuement, installation, or site-specific art. Among many names, Sooja Kim’s 〈Lighthouse Woman〉(2002) in Charleston is extraordinary. She worked on light for the lighthouse to lit the history and its meaning as a sacrifice to the town, and she changed the lighthouse to a woman. Dukhyun Cho buried thirty six iron dogs and digged them as significant artifacts which prove the real history of ‘Eso-guk’, the country existed two thousand years ago. He reversed the Smithson’s theory on the site, yet manipulated and enriched the narrative for the Eso guk.