Installation art

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Rachel Whitread. Embankment at Tate Modern.

Installation art is the use of sculptural materials and other interesting material to transform a space or, arguably, an area. Installation art is not necessarily confined to gallery spaces and can be any material intervention in everyday public or private spaces.

Installation art incorporates almost any media to create an experience in a particular environment. Materials used in contemporary installation art range from everyday and natural materials to new media such as video, sound, performance, immersive virtual reality and the internet. Some installations are site-specific in that they are designed to only exist in the space for which they were created.

Contents

[edit] History

Marcel Duchamp. 'Fountain, 1917

This genre of contemporary art came to prominence in the 1970s. Many trace the roots of this form of art to earlier artists such as Marcel Duchamp and his use of the readymade or to Kurt Schwitters' Merz art objects, rather than more traditional craft based sculpture. The intention of the artist is paramount in much later installation art whose roots lie in the conceptual art of the 1960s. This again is a departure from traditional sculpture which places its focus on form. Early non-Western installation art includes events staged by the Gutai group in Japan starting in 1954, which influenced American installation pioneers like Allan Kaprow.

Installation as nomenclature for a specific form of art came into use fairly recently; its first use as documented by the OED was in 1969. It was coined in this context in reference to a form of art that had arguably existed since prehistory but was not regarded as a discrete category until the mid-twentieth century. Allan Kaprow used the term “Environment” in 1958 (Kaprow 6) to describe his transformed indoor spaces; this later joined such terms as “project art” and “temporary art.”

Essentially, installation/environmental art takes into account the viewer’s entire sensory experience, rather than floating framed points of focus on a “neutral” wall or displaying isolated objects (literally) on a pedestal. This leaves space and time as its only dimensional constants. This implies dissolution of the line between art and life; Kaprow noted that “if we bypass ‘art’ and take nature itself as a model or point of departure, we may be able to devise a different kind of art… out of the sensory stuff of ordinary life” (Kaprow 12).

The conscious act of artistically addressing all the senses with regard to the viewer’s experience in totality made a resounding debut in 1849 when Richard Wagner conceived of a Gesamtkunstwerk, or an operatic work for the stage that drew inspiration from ancient Greek theater in its inclusion of all the major art forms: painting, writing, music, etc. (Britannica) In devising operatic works to commandeer the audience’s senses, Wagner left nothing unobserved: architecture, ambience, and even the audience itself were considered and manipulated in order to achieve a state of total artistic immersion. In the book "Themes in Contemporary Art”, it is suggested that “installations in the 1980s and 1990s were increasingly characterized by networks of operations involving the interaction among complex architectural settings, environmental sites and extensive use of everyday objects in ordinary contexts. With the advent of video in 1965, a concurrent strand of installation evolved through the use of new and ever-changing technologies, and what had been simple video installations expanded to include complex interactive, multimedia and virtual reality environments”.(Themes, 199)

In “Art and Objecthood,” Michael Fried derisively labels art that acknowledges the viewer as “theatrical” (Fried 45). There is a strong parallel between installation and theater: both play to a viewer who is expected to be at once immersed in the sensory/narrative experience that surrounds him and maintain a degree of self-identity as a viewer. The traditional theatergoer does not forget that he has come in from outside to sit and take in a created experience; a trademark of installation art has been the curious and eager viewer, still aware that he is in an exhibition setting and tentatively exploring the novel universe of the installation. A number of institutions focusing on Installation art were created from the 1980s onwards, suggesting the need for Installation to be seen as a separate discipline. These included the Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh and the Museum of Installation, London, among others.

The artist and critic Ilya Kabakov mentions this essential phenomenon in the introduction to his lectures “On the “Total” Installation:” “[One] is simultaneously both a ‘victim’ and a viewer, who on the one hand surveys and evaluates the installation, and on the other, follows those associations, recollections which arise in him[;] he is overcome by the intense atmosphere of the total illusion” (Kabakov 256). Here installation art bestows an unprecedented importance on the observer’s inclusion in that which he observes. The expectations and social habits that the viewer takes with him into the space of the installation will remain with him as he enters, to be either applied or negated once he has taken in the new environment. What is common to nearly all installation art is a consideration of the experience in toto and the problems it may present, namely the constant conflict between disinterested criticism and sympathetic involvement. Television and video offer immersive experiences, but their unrelenting control over the rhythm of passing time and the arrangement of images precludes an intimately personal viewing experience (Kabakov 257). Ultimately, the only things a viewer can be assured of when experiencing the work are his own thoughts and preconceptions and the basic rules of space and time. All else may be molded by the artist’s hands.

The central importance of the subjective point of view when experiencing installation art, points toward a disregard for traditional Platonic image theory. In effect, the entire installation adopts the character of the simulacrum or flawed statue: it neglects any ideal form in favor of optimizing its direct appearance to the observer. Installation art operates fully within the realm of sensory perception, in a sense “installing” the viewer into an artificial system with an appeal to his subjective perception as its ultimate goal.

Carsten Höller. Test Site, 2006, Tate Modern. Members of the public slid down as much as five stories inside tubular slides.

[edit] Interactive installations

Interactive installation is a branch off the installation arts category. Usually, an interactive installation will often involve the audience acting on it or the piece responding to the user’s activity. There are several kinds of interactive installations produced, these include web-based installations, gallery based installations, digital based installations, electronic based installations, etc. Interactive installations are mostly seen from the 1990s, when artists are more interested in the participation of the audiences where the meaning of the installation is generated.

With the improvement of technology over the years, artists are more able to explore outside of the boundaries that were never able to be explored by artists in the past. The media used are more experimental and bold; they are also usually cross media and may involve sensors, which plays on the reaction to the audiences’ movement when looking at the installations. By using virtual Reality as a medium, immersive virtual reality art is probably the most deeply interactive form of art. At the turn of a new century, there is a trend of interactive installations using video, film, sound and sculpture.

[edit] Contemporary installation artists

[edit] See also

[edit] Bibliography

  • Bishop, Claire. Installation Art a Critical History. London: Tate, 2005.
  • Coulter-Smith, Graham. Deconstructing Installation Art. Online resource
  • de Oliveira, Nicolas and Oxley, Nicola. 'Installation art', London: Thames & Hudson and Smithsonian Institute, 1994. ISBN 0-500-23672-0
  • de Oliveira, Nicolas and Oxley, Nicola, 'Installation art in the New Millennium: Empire of the Senses', London: Thames & Hudson, 2003. ISBN 0-500-23808-1
  • Fried, Michael. “Art and Objecthood.” In Art and Objecthood: Essays and Reviews. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.
  • “Installation [Environment].” Grove Art Encyclopedia. 2006. Grove Art Online. 30 January 2006 [1].
  • “Installation.” Oxford English Dictionary. 2006. Oxford English Dictionary Online. 30 January 2006 [2].
  • “Install, v.” Oxford English Dictionary. 2006. Oxford English Dictionary Online. 30 January 2006 [3].
  • Kabakov, Ilya. On the “Total” Installation. Ostfildern, Germany: Cantz, 1995, 243-260.
  • Kaprow, Allan. “Notes on the Creation of a Total Art.” In Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life, ed. Jeff Kelley. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. ISBN 0-520-24079-0
  • "opera." Britannica Student Encyclopedia. 2006. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 15 February 2006 [4].
  • Reiss, Julie H. From Margin to Center: The Spaces of Installation Art. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001. ISBN 0-262-68134-X
  • Rosenthal, Mark. Understanding Installation Art: From Duchamp to Holzer. Munich: Prestel Verlag, 2003. ISBN 3-791-32984-7

[edit] External links

Contemporary installation organizations and museums
Installation art
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