Spatioplastic expressions and the architectural space after conceptual art: Examples from the art exhibition Documenta 1955-2007

Taking as a starting point the disruption of illusion in art after 1960, this dissertation discusses the transition of action and meaning from the illusory pictorial space, which is the space of solid meanings and representations, to the real physical and social space. This spatioplastic dialectic informs both the generation of objects, either works of art or everyday products, and also the conditions of spatial production and experience. From the non-representational expression of early-conceptual art to the augmented-space environments and relational practices after the 1990's, space becomes the center of reference, interaction and recognition of productive meanings.The basic hypothesis involves the idea of a generalized field for theory and intervention, concepts and materials, objects and social processes. The configuration of objects and the production of space lie beyond conventional materiality and concrete programs and identities. The form and meaning of contemporary objects and spaces is related to a new negotiation: the alteration between local and global, identity and «generic». As the perception of space changes, from static it tends to include networks of physical places and their immaterial links, its description involves the expansion of the scope: from the limits of a particular context to a changing network of contexts. Contemporary spatial experience is associated with the reinvention of a new narrative composed through processes of identification and rendering meaning in relation to an original event. Conversely, designing forms, objects and spaces becomes the organized handling of associations, inter-subjective events, individual and collective experiences, through the strategic parameterization of the physical and interactive features of products. For the methodological approach of these hypotheses, the main case of study is the art object as presented through the international exhibition Documenta. This event, taking place in Kassel of Germany, occurs from the beginning of the chronological framework set by this research, in 1955, and covers, every fifth year, its total range until the first decade of the 21st century