Catalog accompanying the exhibition Places with a Past: New Site-specific Art in Charleston, the Spoleto Festival 1991, curated by Mary Jane Jacob, Charleston (South Carolina, USA), various venues in public space (24.05.–04.08.1991).
An influential US example of site-specific, community-oriented contemporary art production in public space, this is a quintessential Jacob project: long-term, engaged with the local community, involving a diverse range of artists.
Jacob asked each artist to spend time in Charleston (with its complex history of racism, economic decline, etc.) and to reflect on the local conditions from their own experiences and perspectives.
Artists who participated in the exhibition were: Christian Boltanski, Chris Burden, James Coleman, Houston Conwill, Estella Conwill Majozo, Joseph DePace, Kate Ericson, Mel Ziegler, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Gwylene Gallimard, Jean-Marie Mauclet, Antony Gormley, Ann Hamilton, David Hammons, Ronald Jones, Narelle Jubelin, Liz Magor, Elizabeth Newman, Joyce Scott, Cindy Sherman, Lorna Simpson, Alva Rogers, Barbara Steinmen.
MARY JANE JACOB is a curator who holds the position of Professor and Executive Director of Exhibitions and Exhibition Studies at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago [SAIC].
As chief curator of the Museums of Contemporary Art in Chicago and Los Angeles, she staged some of the first U.S. shows of American and European artists. Then shifting her workplace from the museum to...