What is Site-Specific all about?

So what is exactly site-specific? And why should we in Maakaf use the English term?

As is with every issue, Maakaf wishes to facilitate a space for discussion around key issues relating to artists and their practice. For this reason we have collated a wide range of artists who will try and answer the questions posed at the start of this editorial.

In their articles writers offer different answers, and it seems that the difficulty in finding a Hebrew term suggests that the problem isn’t merely a linguistic one. However, the difficulty in finding the right term, as well as a precise definition for the genre, does not bear witness to the amount of site-specific work being made. There were a quite a few at the Ye’arot Menashe Festival this last August as well as the Street C.A.T Bat Yam and Akko Festivals in Sukot, and of course at Talooy Bamakom – a festival dedicated to site-specific work.

The third issue of Maakaf offers different ways of viewing site-specific works, and hopes, as always, to provide a platform for a deep and enriching discourse around the topic; Guy Biran takes us through some of the artistic milestones of his own career in the field of site-specific work. Dafna Kron examines different aspects of the genre while trying to find a precise definition for it. Home Made Ensemble - Avigail Rubin and Yoav Bartel talking with Ati Citron on his long experience with site-specific works as a director, a teacher and an artistic director. Ben Hertzog puts down in writing some of his thoughts after watching a few of the site-specific works presented at the Street C.A.T Bat Yam Festival. Keren Cytter presents for the first time a series of photographs from her new film Don’t Touch Me Psychopath. The Flies on The Wall are eavesdropping on a conversation between Lechay Bekerman, Nataly Zukerman and Yuval Meskin. Their discussion revolves around Talooy Bamakom Festival, and questions that are raised in regards to the making of site-specific works, as they each see it – the festival’s Artistic Directors and Yuval as the member of the Board. Hillel Kogan reflects on the centrality of “place” within the Israeli social, political and artistic contexts. He examines it via looking at the recent political uproar concerning to the city of Ariel.
 
From Hebrew: Sivan Gabrielovich - Gal

Cover image: Keren Cytter, Untitled (2010)
From the photographs’ series presented in the Visual Correspondence editorial.