Place-As-Medium and New Grounds for Thinking in Contemporary Art

This book presents a broad scope of global contemporary art projects, establishing a new philosophical framework to understand and evaluate the new art practice known as “place-as‑medium.”

This new category of art practice creates artworks that deepen our belonging to place by asking us to think through them together. This book shows how place‑as‑medium art reshapes the ground of thinking by offering a new reading of the work of Alfredo Jaar through the theories of Jacques Ranciere, Gianni Vattimo, and Martin Heidegger. An in-depth analysis of Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev’s 2012 international art exhibition dOCUMENTA (13) focuses on the temporal and spatial dimensions of thinking through place. This book advocates for shared authorship exemplified in artworks by Theaster Gates and John Preus that use repair and renovation to rebuild communities, and provides a model for ecological thinking in a case study of The Swamp School by Nomeda and Gediminas Urbonas. Additionally, this book includes a Coda for Place‑As‑Medium as a practical guide for artists to think through place.

This book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, contemporary art, and philosophy.