Writings 1973-1983 on Works 1969-1979

Patricia Vervoort is an assistant professor of art history at Lakehead
University.

Documenting the temporary installations of Michael Asher, a Los Angeles environmental artist, from 1969 to 1979 with commentaries written between 1973 and 1983, this is the fifteenth volume in the Nova Scotia Series: Source Materials of the Contemporary Arts. Benjamin H.D. Buchloh is the editor. Thirty-three installation projects are thoroughly documented with written statements, photographs of the installations from various viewpoints, and carefully drawn and measured architectural diagrams of the ground plans and wall elevations. The drawings were produced by architect Lawrence Kenny. A list of exhibitions and a bibliography complete the volume.

Asher’s work deals with space and experience in a specific site, usually the interior of a gallery. For example, the 1973 exhibition at the Galleria Toselli in Milan involved the sandblasting of the gallery’s interior, “a process of subtraction” or “material withdrawal” (p.89). This means revealed the buildings construction history and “established the integral totality of both exhibition space and work” (p.89). At Munster, West Germany, in 1977, an ordinary travel-trailer was relocated weekly for 19 weeks in and around the city to display its “temporal specificity” (p.167).

The viewer participates in this art of environmental space. It is an aesthetic of experience. For the uninitiated, this volume offers a clear and enlightening explanation of an artist’s approach to conceptual art. For the enthusiast, Michael Asher records his working process with unrivaled thoroughness.