The question of site was built into Land Art projects from their very emergence in the late 1970s. So, too, was their eventual degradation. These works, like all other things, are subject entropy\u2019s steady march into chaos. What James Nisbet\u200a\u2014\u200aprofessor of art history at the University of California, Irvine\u200a\u2014\u200aaims to take up in his 2021 book Second Site <\/em>are the ways in whichthese secondary effects (and affects) could be understood as a version of \u201csite\u201d in their own right. Recontextualizing several famous and not-so-famous monumental artworks, Nisbet considers how physical change over time manifests conceptual change, identifying these artworks as his titular \u201csecond sites.\u201d<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Loosely playing with Robert Smithson\u2019s articulation of sites and non-sites, Nisbet comes to this secondness by understanding that 1) no site is ever unchanging, and 2) the term \u201csecond site\u201d evokes \u201csecond nature\u201d not in its colloquial usage but as a recognition that no pristine, untouched \u201cfirst nature\u201d exists; he also plays on the homophone \u201csecond sight,\u201d which refers to predictions of the future and the works\u2019 inextricable relation to time. He posits that each of these qualities of secondness are grounded in the seismic shifts resulting from climate change and that the set of ethics emerging through his essay may be applicable to contexts outside of art theory and conservation. The book is divided into three chapters: \u201cSuccession,\u201d \u201cTime Worlds,\u201d and \u201cSite-Images.\u201d Employing many examples to articulate the nuances of each category, from Ant Farm\u2019s Cadillac Ranch<\/em> (1974) to Alan Sonfist\u2019s Time Landscape<\/em> (1965\u200a\u2212<\/em>\u200apresent), Nisbet\u2019s most compelling and fleshed-out example\u200a\u2014\u200aRichard Serra\u2019s Shift<\/em> (1970\u200a\u2212<\/em>72)\u200a\u2014\u200ais threaded through all of them. The examination of this lesser-known work set in rural Ontario is a breath of fresh air compared to the extensive writing on Serra\u2019s contentious 1981 Tilted Arc <\/em>(although this work does get some airtime in Second Site<\/em>). Located on the northern edge of the Greater Toronto Area, Shift <\/em>is a site-specific work that represents the approximate distance at which one subject loses sight of the other as they move apart. Nisbet argues that Shift<\/em>\u2019s predication on the ability to see across an open field alludes to histories of colonization, recalling the now-absent forests traditionally managed by the Mississaugas, since replaced with vast swaths of open farmland, presently at the mercy of encroaching urban sprawl. One of the highlights of the book is a discussion of how members of the local King City community have banded together to protect the work from developers. The legal implications of the work, much like those of Tilted Arc<\/em>, almost supersede the artistic intent, perhaps even becoming a second site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n