What follows may sound strange, as it concerns space. Space is not a typical fine art medium. In fact, it is not only uncommon, is not even part of the fine art canon. So space, as an art medium, is strange. What follows, then, may make it a little less so.

A sculptural situation is a delineated space made evident by the work of art, itself. Its space is not delineated by any art institutional device -- such as a plinth or pedestal -- to segregate the space of the work of art from the everyday space surrounding it. A sculptural situation’s space is separate to, while being a part of, everyday space. This stems from minimalism, in particular work by Donald Judd.

One’s engagement with a sculptural situation involves traversing opposite positions. The foremost opposition in a sculptural situation tends to manifest as a movement between inside and outside its delineated space.

In earlier sculptural situations consisting of a floorplan, only, the opposite positions are not only found as separate rooms within the floorplan -- for instance a room in which one is ‘allowed’ as opposed to another where one is ‘not allowed’ (see above flower power image) -- but these oppositions echo the more fundamental one of a viewer imaginatively able to roam inside the floorplan while physically outside it; physically barred, that is, from entering. In this there forms an opposition between two- and three-dimensional space.

The medium of a sculptural situation is ‘intersubjective space’, a space created by the converse or opposite positions a viewer traverses to engage with the work. A viewer’s engagement therefore takes the form of a conversation. It is the space of this intersubjectivity or conversation -- the space between opposing subject positions -- that is the space created by a sculptural situation. Accompanying encyclopaedic texts within the work tend to echo this conversation in one way or another. This includes any listed set of guidelines, instructions or 'difficult art decisions'. In other words, any accompanying text is secondary to the concrete actuality of a sculptural situation, an actuality created through a viewer’s engagement with it. Any accompanying text is therefore but an echo -- a repetition or doubling -- of this actuality taking place.

Accordingly, there is no figure/field hierarchy or relationship in a sculptural situation; in that the space of a sculptural situation is the space created by the opposite or converse positions a viewer takes up to engage with it. The work’s field, therefore, occurs between these two positions without there being a third subject position, or figure, relationship to it.

The space of a sculptural situation is independent of the room it is seen in, rather than dependent as are installation and site specific works (if inside). A sculptural situation is autonomous -- it is self contained. It determines its space rather than the room doing so. We see this clearly, for instance, in Room for Love (1990) were the opposing positions of the tête-à-tête chair (otherwise known as a ‘conversational chair’ or ‘love chair’) face the opposing positions of north and south no matter in which room it is placed. This spatial alignment is indicated on the floorplans within the work.

Installation has only an ‘inside’. Paintings and sculptures, conversely, have only an ‘outside’, or surface. A sculptural situation is different to installation, painting and sculpture in that it has an inside and outside through its delineation of actual space. By being different it is not a combination of installation, painting and sculpture -- but something separate, something other. If seen through the terms of an installation, painting or sculpture -- the space of a sculptural situation will not be seen.

It is now more than forty years since minimalism placed the question of ‘actual’ space on the agenda of contemporary art. While the question, itself, seems increasingly ignored, more than enough time has passed to begin to delineate the differences between works of art that stem from it. A sculptural situation is but one delineation within this field, installation and site-specific works of art are others. Without recognising the difference between spatial works of art, it seems to me we are unable to recognise the difference of spatial work per se.

The term ‘sculptural situation’ was coined in 1997 in the catalogue text for the exhibition On Dialogue at Haus am Waldsee, Berlin (curated by Anne Marie Freybourg). The text, written by me, is a conversation.

Coinage of the term, however, grew through gradual recognition of the spatial oppositions operating within the work already made, wherein the term became necessary in order to identify the difference between this and other spatial works of art. Accordingly, the attributes described above are those I have discerned so far. They are not conclusive, only indicative.

Gail Hastings, 2 November 2008