Site-specific installations are created for specific locations and are usually intended as temporary artworks. The Perpetuation of Site-Specific Installation Artworks in Museums: Staging Contemporary Art shows that these artworks consist of more than a singular manifestation and that their lifespan is often extended. In this book, Tatja Scholte offers an in-depth account of the artistic production of the last forty years. With a wealth of case studies the author illuminates the diversity of site-specific art in both form and content, as well as in the conservation strategies applied. A conceptual framework is provided for scholars and museum professionals to better understand how site-specific installations gain new meanings during successive stages of their biographies and may become agents for change in professional routines.

Tatja Scholte is an art historian and conservation scholar at the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands. She coordinated several European projects in the conservation of contemporary art and, together with Glenn Wharton, coedited Inside Installations: Theory and Practice in the Care of Complex Artworks (Amsterdam University Press, 2011).

1 The Problem of the Perpetuation of Site-Specific Installation Art
Introduction
1.1 Research Question
1.2 Olafur Eliasson’s Notion Motion
1.3 Biographical Approach
1.4 Typologies and Site-Specific Installations as Dynamic Networks
1.5 Outline

2 Site-Specific Installation Art in Historical Perspective
2.1 The Rise of Site-Specific Installation Art: Criticism Towards the Established Art World
2.2 Unmoveable or Moveable? The Case of Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc
2.3 The Extended Life of Richard Serra’s Splashing
2.4 Site Specificity and the Viewer’s Position in the Gallery Space
2.5 Robert Morris’s Amsterdam Project
2.6 The Site of Production and the Site of Perception
2.7 Phil Collins’s they shoot horses

3 A Conceptual Model for the Analysis of Site-Specific Installations
The Conceptual Model Part 1: Triadic Model for Analysing Site Specificity
3.1 Introducing Henri Lefebvre’s Theory on Space
3.2 Lefebvre’s Triad of Spatiality Applied to Site-Specific Installations
3.3 Analysing Cultural Phenomena “as Performance”
The Conceptual Model Part 2: Analysing Successive Iterations of Site-Specific Installation Artworks
3.4 Looking through the Lens of Conservation: Performativity of Site-Specific Installation Artworks
3.5 Site-Specific Installations as Networks “In Action”
3.6 Using the Script as an Analytical Tool
3.7 A Short Analysis of Two Site-Specific Installations by Richard Serra

4 Ernesto Neto’s Célula Nave
Extending the Lifespan of a Temporary, Site-Specific Installation in a Museum Context
4.1 The Spatial Design and Materiality of Célula Nave
4.2 The Functions of “Social Space” and “Representational Space” in Célula Nave
4.3 The Fabrication of Célula Nave and “Spaces of Production”
4.4 The Reinstallation of Célula Nave without the Presence of the Artist
4.5 Shifts in the Spatial Network of Célula Nave and Refinement of the Conceptual Model
4.6 We Fishing the Time: The Relocation of a Temporary Installation to the Permanent Collection of the Tate Modern
4.7 Option 1: Restoration of the Original Artwork
4.8 Option 2: Remake by a Textile Factory in Brazil and the Artist’s Studio
4.9 Option 3: Remake by Another Fabricator Aiming at a More Durable Version

5 Jason Rhoades’s SLOTO
Reactivating Site Specificity and the Social Space of Perpetuation and Care
5.1 The Spatial Design of The Secret Life of the Onion
5.2 Representational Site Specificity of The Secret Life of the Onion
5.3 Social Production Spaces of The Secret Life of the Onion
5.4 Summarizing the Spatial Network of the First Staging
5.5 A Curatorial Intervention with SLOTO’s Second Staging
5.6 Comparison with Jason Rhoades’s P.I.G. (Piece in Ghent)
5.7 The Spatial Network “In Flux”

6 Drifting Producers
The Perpetuation of an Installation Artwork Emerging from a Site-Specific Project
6.1 The Project and the Installation Drifting Producers
6.2 The Spatial Network of the Initial Exhibition at the Art Sonje Center
6.3 Intercultural Exchange in the Production and Reception of Drifting Producers
6.4 The Trajectory of Drifting Producers
6.5 Site Specificity of Drifting Producers in the Van Abbemuseum
6.6 The Social Production Space of Drifting Producers
6.7 Comparative Case Study: Constant’s New Babylon Project

7 Conclusion and Further Discussion
7.1 General Conclusion
7.2 Site Specificity and the Ongoing Dialogue between Artists and Custodians
7.3 Museum Practices and the Expanded Performance Analogy