An examination of a major 1992 installation by a pioneer of
site-specific experimentation.
Michael Asher (born in 1943), one of the foremost installation artists
of the Conceptual art period, is a founder of site-specific practice.
Considered a progenitor of institutional critique, he spearheaded the
creation of artworks imbued with a self-conscious awareness of their
dependence on the conditions of their exhibition context.
In the work Kunsthalle Bern 1992, Asher removed the radiators from all
the museum's exhibition spaces and reassembled them in its entryway
gallery. Metal pipes connected the relocated radiators to their original
sockets; these tubular conduits, coursing in linear fashion along the
Kunsthalle's walls, kept the steam heat flowing and endowed the
installation with directional lines of force. This "displacement of
givens" offers a perfect example of site-specific practice, one that
took the gallery space and the institution itself as its subject. In
this detailed examination of Kunsthalle Bern 1992, Anne Rorimer
considers the work in the context of Asher's ongoing desire to fuse art
with the material, economic, and social conditions of institutional
presentation.
Rorimer analyzes Kunsthalle Bern 1992 in relation to the earlier
innovations of such minimalist artists as Donald Judd, Carl Andre,
Robert Morris, Sol LeWitt, Bruce Nauman, and Dan Flavin as well as to
such conceptualist contemporaries as Daniel Buren, Dan Graham, and Maria
Nordman. She also considers the installation in the context of other
works by Asher that have used non-art, functional elements, including
walls, or that have investigated museological issues.
