Installation Art
History & Styles of Installations - Form of Conceptual Art, a Post-Modernist 20th Century Visual Arts Movement: Famous Conceptual Artists.
Irish Visual Arts Information

Installation Art

Installation art is a relatively new genre which incorporates a range of 2-D and 3-D materials to influence the way we experience or perceive a particular space. Installations are artistic interventions designed to make us rethink our lives and values.

As in all general forms of Conceptual art, Installation artists are more concerned with the presentation of their message than with the means used to achieve it. However, unlike 'pure' Conceptual art, which is supposedly experienced in the minds of those introduced to it, Installation art is more grounded - it remains tied to a physical space.

Types of Installations

This visual art form ranges from the very simple to the very complex. An installation can be gallery based, digital based, electronic based, web-based - the possibilities are limitless and depend entirely upon the artist's concept and aims. Almost any type of material or media can be utilized in contemporary installation art, including natural or man-made objects, painting and sculpture, as well as new media such as film, video, photography, audio, performance, happenings and computers.

Some compositions are strictly indoor, while others are primarily public art, constructed in open-air community spaces. Some are mute, while others are interactive and require audience participation.

The Forked Forest Path (1998)
by Olafur Eliasson.

HISTORY OF VISUAL ARTS
For a list of important dates about
movements, schools, famous styles,
from the Stone Age to 20th Century,
see: History of Visual Art Timeline.

Installations On Tour

Some installations are custom-made for a particular space, others - such as the still-life line drawings of clustered objects made from adhesive tape, by Michael Craig-Martin (b.1941) - can be assembled anywhere. Some even tour as part of a touring exhibition, examples being: the kinetic light environments of the Groupe Recherche d'Art Visuel which toured in Europe; Earth Room (1968) by Walter De Maria (b.1935) which toured America before finding a permanent home in New York; and '20:50' by British sculptor Richard Wilson - a room filled with sump oil, viewed from a footbridge - which was shown in London, the Royal Scottish Academy and is now in Charles Saatchi's collection of contemporary art. However, whatever their particular character, most installation artworks have a low intrinsic value: their real 'value' is the artistic effect they produce.

Difference Between Sculpture and Installation

At first glance, some installations may resemble traditional craft based sculptures. But this is an illusion. Installation art effectively inverts the principles of sculpture. Whereas the latter is designed to be viewed from the outside as a self-contained arrangement of forms, installations often envelop the spectator in the space of the work. The viewer enters a controlled environment featuring objects as well as light, sound and projected imagery. The formalism of the composition remains of secondary importance - it is the effect on the spectator's spacial and cultural expectations that remains paramount.

History

Emerging during the 1970s, Installation is associated with Conceptual art and can therefore be traced back to artists such as Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) and his modernist readymade works such as the urinal in Fountain (1917); the avant-garde Dada exhibitions in Berlin and Cologne; Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948) and his 'Merzbau' assemblage comprising a whole building filled with objets trouvés; the Spatial Environments of the painter and sculptor Lucio Fontana (1899-1968) and his White Manifesto outlining his theories of Spatialism; 4-33 silent composition of musician John Milton Cage Jr (1912–1992), and the erased De Kooning canvas of Robert Rauschenberg (b.1925). The assemblages and writings of the American avant-garde artist Allan Kaprow (b.1927) - notably his 1966 book 'Assemblage, Environments and Happenings' - were also highly influential on the development of the Installation genre.

Modern Artists

Famous installation artists include: Joseph Beuys (1921-86) the war-scarred ex-Professor of Monumental Sculpture at the Dusseldorf Academy, whose lard and felt installations, bold lectures on art and creativity and career long dedication earned him a retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in New York and whose works are now in museums around the world including the Musee Pompidou in Paris; the German multi-media artist Rebecca Horn (b.1944), noted for her films of Performance art as well as her still and kinetic installations, and her Guggenheim retrospective which toured Europe in 1994; and the Frenchman Christian Boltanski (b.1944), famous for his installations of sets of photographs, sometimes with lights. Other notable contemporary Installation artists include: the Norwegian Olafur Eliasson, whose works include The Forked Forest Path (1998), at the Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne; and the Korean Do-Ho Suh, noted for his composition Some/One (2002) featuring thousands of nickel military dogtags, at the Serpentine Gallery, London.

• For information about contemporary/avant-garde art in Ireland, see: Irish Art Guide.

• How to Update This Mini Review of Installation Art.

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