Robert Irwin’s “9 Spaces, 9 Trees” rises from the dead! But, is it still the same display of the avant-garde or a soulless reproduction riding the coattails of nostalgia?
Irwin’s “9 Spaces, 9 Trees” (1983) originally installed in the plaza in front of Seattle’s Public Safety Building, was taken down in 2001 with the demolition of the building. Preservation efforts landed Irwin’s influential work on grassy patch of underutilized land within the University of Washington campus in Seattle.
A short unauthorized biography on the piece begins in the 80’s at the height of the environmental art era when artists were leaving the white walled galleries to experiment with art in the real world. Words like land-art and earthworks were being thrown around like neon NERF footballs and Maverick-Goose flipside high fives. Irwin’s exploration of site specificity in his work led him to many important works of the 1970s and 80s. “9 Spaces, 9 Trees” was claimed to be one of those site generated works by Irwin. Placed in a public plaza of Seattle’s Public Safety building, the original light blue screening contrasted the urban grey of downtown Seattle. Although an important work in the art world for its play with light and space, the piece was rumored to be unpopular by the employees and users of the plaza who interpreted the 9 spaces defined by chainlinked mesh as allegorical for the incarceration cells of the Public Safety building that it fronted. Ultimately, the plaza was sealed off from the public when the building entrance that Irwin’s piece guarded was eliminated for a controlled central entrance on the other side of the building.
Now that “9 Spaces, 9 Trees” has been nostalgically restored back into the public realm, it evokes many questions leading back to Irwin’s coined ideas of site determined art. Are we suppose to view “9 Spaces, 9 Trees” version 2.0 as the same work that briefly graced the public realm 25 years ago? Not having seen the original in person and only in the form of slides, B! was excited to experience “9 Spaces, 9 Trees” for myself. But was it wise for Irwin, who once did not allow photographic reproductions of his work since he felt photographs do not record the phenomena of his pieces, to try and recreate his acclaimed work when it, at least in my mind, achieved near mythical status because of the few images circulating and experiencing it only through folklore style verbal recounts? B! votes no. Experiencing it in its new location, there was an odd sense of insincerity… maybe it was because it was sited in an awkward space behind the undergraduate library, or maybe because the color of the scrims turn from the original pale blue to a dark purple (purple being coincidentally being the school color of the Washington Huskies). B! couldn’t help but feel that he was witnessing another George-Lucas-ing of a classic (as in meddling with his original Star Wars). Is this a genuine effort by Irwin to rework “9 Spaces” into the specificity o f its new home or just another piece of art being victim of nostalgic preservation? You can decide for yourself.
Below Three: 2007
Bottom Three: 1983
