Installation as a “Featured” Form of Art (original) (raw)
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The exhibition as medium: artist, space, artwork and viewer in dialogue
This paper explores the notion of the exhibition as an opportunity to reveal and enhance meaning thus creating a reflective space where viewer and artwork dialogue and relate with each other. Using as example the practice of Portuguese sculptor Alberto Carneiro (b. 1937), it will analyze key features of his work and suggest ways to expand them into the exhibition space. The work of Alberto Carneiro can be described as highly conceptual while grounded in a strong materiality. Carneiro’s work is often site-related and his installation pieces are usually preceded by what the artist himself designates by project-drawings. The graph paper sheets that Carneiro uses for his project-drawings are filled with records that elucidate about the concepts inherent to the origin of the work as well as about its installation in the exhibition space: drawings of details from the work, references to the materials used, schemes of the spatial distribution of the elements, possible trajectories for the viewer, dimensions of some parts, sentences and thoughts of the artist. All aspects in these complex project-drawings concur to reveal the profound thinking process behind them. The subsequent installation artworks, which typically bring natural elements such as trees, rocks or fruits into the museum, are, then, the materialization of that deep investigation about space and its relations with each element of the artwork and the body and mind of both the artist and the viewer. One of the common aspects between the two devices, project-drawings and installation artworks, is the use of the word as a means to establish a dialogue with the viewer: not only in the titles which directly address him/her, but also annotations in the project-drawings or sentences present in some installation artworks. All call upon the presence of the viewer in the space shared by him/her and the artwork, as well as the viewers’ experiences in nature (walking, lying in grass, picking up fruit). It is this communicability inherent to the genesis of both project-drawings and installations that I believe can be potentiated with the simultaneous exhibition of the two. However, although obviously connected, project-drawings and installations are independent works: they belong to different collections and as a rule are exhibited separately. By taking the exhibition as a reflective space, this paper analyzes how the confrontation between the project-drawings and the installation artworks can potentiate new dialogues and perspectives about them, enhancing that communicability which was one of the artist’s goals in the first place. I will start to present the works which will be used as examples, and then explore the potential new readings that using the exhibition as medium could create. Taking the exhibition as a privileged space where to materialize the concepts explored in the project-drawings, the artist himself renders each re-installation as a new experience. If, as Carneiro states, “The drawing is not made as something which prepares sculpture, but as a means which favors its developments” , then their simultaneous exhibition will always create a new space for reflection and deeper understanding of the artist’s concepts, intentions and artistic processes.
Theatricality in Installation Artworks. An Overview
Aisthesis 12 (1), 2019
The article is an investigation into theatricality from various standpoints (among others those of Michael Fried, Claire Bishop, Juliane Rebentisch and Samuel Weber) in order to focus on different views on theatricality considered as partially emancipated from theatre and to verify if and to what extent each of them can apply to installation artworks as environments and intermedial devices. Ultimately the article propounds the idea of a paradoxical anti-theatrical theatricality of installation art, grasped in its very connection to site-specificity, critically engaging Martin Heidegger’s insights regarding the «Gestell» and the «work-being» of the work of art, as a general theoretical basis through which a particular focus of ‘specificity’ of installation is endorsed.
Photography in the Context of Installation and Dimensionality
ConICom Journal, 2023
"Installation Art", which dates back to the 1960s and has its origins in Dada and ready-made, emerged together with art genres such as environment, happening, performance and asamblaį in a period when all art disciplines were transformed and traditional art rules were broken. Installation art is an experience in which the work is integrated with the space and the viewer, but the presence of the viewer is included in the work. In Installation Art, one can see quite different and diverse art approaches such as video, sound, performance, painting and dance, as well as different and very interesting materials and methods. Experiences such as the audience's sensory participation in the work and even the audience's intervention in the work enable the installation to be used by quite different fields. In this understanding, photography, along with all artistic disciplines, is a highly utilized field of art. Photography shows itself in various forms in quite different installations such as performance, sculpture, dimensional objects, mixed media. Within the scope of this study, photography, which creates a new dimensional experience by integrating its two-dimensionality with new approaches such as sound and smell together with space and audience experience, is examined in the context of installation.
The Art of Installation in the Face of the (Multi)Media Challenge
The diversity of the artists' attitudes and actions as well as the multiplicity of the tools they were using triggered a steady and internally diversified process of changing the character of newly created installations. As a result, the concept of the art of installation, just like many other categories of contemporary art, lacks a homogeneous and unequivocal character. Looking at the contemporary works referred to by artists and critics as installations, we can in fact state that none of their classical attributes mentioned so far is obligatory for them today. The presence or absence of those features only makes it possible for us to identify the types of installations. For example, the close relation to a particular place, until today regarded by numerous theoreticians and critics as a defining feature of the art of installation, is now in fact only a feature of one of its types, referred to as site specific, or in situ installation. As for the other types, only the impermanence, ephemerality or temporality manifesting themselves in various ways can be considered to be a remnant, or a consequence of the original relation to some concrete space. After their presentation at the exhibition, such installations are dismantled and, when shown again in another gallery, they often take on a different form. Thus they occur in different shapes and formats, which means that they remain the same artwork only owing to the identity of their concept, idea or meaning. Installations of this type thus have sort of the character of a work in progress. Their ephemerality ultimately becomes, to some extend, a defining feature of each type of installation, achieving, as stated above, its maximum concentration only in the form of the installation in situ. This type of installation is characterised by an unbreakable, and yet unique, relation between the person (artist), the place and the time.
Installation: Between the Artistic and Architectural Project
The subject of this research is the art installation, a spatial creativity that arises in relation between art and architecture. In a more narrow definition, the subject of the research is installations created in the formative period of the 60s and 70s up to the present. As a 'critical spatial practice' art installations are conceived in the form of alternative proposals for settlements which enter the field of architectural design. Ideas concerning new sets of relations between the subject and a spatial order indicate the potential of the use of the concept of art installations in architectural design. The initial hypothesis is that art installations represent the articulation of a place of dialogue between art and architecture, which opens up a new field of research in architectural design. The aim of the research is to show the position of art installations as architectural projects. The applied methodological procedures approach architectural design in a manner of synthesizing the architecture and art in a new form of visual culture. The paper deals with the study of artistic concepts in terms of design, which emphasizes the importance of an interdisciplinary approach to research and the importance of integrating the principles of art in the field of architectural design. The main contribution of this paper is reflected in the expansion of the problem and thematic framework of research on architectural design, contemporary art and their relation. Art installation – about the Term, the Appearance and Development Defining the term art installation is a specific research topic. Reference literature indicates that the precise definition of the term is missing, and that the term refers to numerous practices variously registered in the line of historical and theoretical approaches. 1 Generally speaking, the term refers to artistic practices originated in the 1 According to the theorist Julie M. Reiss the term was first used in the 70s to describe a process that frees the artist from his or her work in the studio and which refers to the criticism of the official institutions of art.
Positing the division of space into geometric and performative, and pointing to the three strategies of its intensification proposed by Erika Fischer-Lichte in reference to the theater, the author of the article attempts to find their counterparts in visual arts. The article focuses on some Polish examples of public art, environment and installation. The first strategy of intensification distinguished by Fischer-Lichte concerned the use of empty or nearly empty stage space, whose arrangement could change, allowing for different patterns of movement of the actors or the spectators. The article discusses whether it is possible to determine the relationship of a work of art with an empty gallery space through its active management. The objects used by artists are meant to intensify the sense of lack, emptiness and absence, to stimulate imagination and sensitivity, or to refer to spiritual values. Effects of this type are discussed on the example of the works of Jan Berdyszak and Mirosław Bałka. According to the second strategy of the performative approach to space in theater, happening and performance art, the chosen place of action allows or rejects certain modes of behavior. Thus, there is no freedom of assigning meaning. This kind of situation occurs in the case of Wojciech Fangor's environment and of Składaki by Maciej Szańkowski. The artists create a new space with their works, at the same time determining, through its characteristics, the situation of their reception, a specific energy that varies depending on the number of recipients, their age and other factors. The third strategy of the intensification of performativity defined by Fisher-Lichte is the use of pre-existing and reclaimed spaces, whose features are modified in the course of the action. In the case of theater, these are performances arranged in town squares, in industrial interiors, in rural areas, on beaches, etc. In the visual arts, an analogous procedure was used in Mikołaj Smoczyński's installation Labirynt, realized at the Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw and even more explicitly in Joanna Rajkowska's Dotleniacz. The works by Polish artists described here do not posit the concept of a work as an artifact meant for timeless and universal contemplation. They take into account what is current, unstable, fleeting, dependent on the will and decision of not only the artist but also the spectator. They demonstrate the ability to assign a performative sense to space without having to refer to the actors' actions, as in the case of theater performances.
Between Public and Private Space. The Art of Sanja Ivekovic
Up to the twentieth century art showed the tendency to appear in two distinct spheres. One was the public space, where artifacts had mainly decorative, memorial or propaganda functions. The other was the elite museum or gallery domain----the enclave of pure art. This topological polarization is paralleled by the analogous duality of artistic practices. The two sorts of art, established through appropriation to one of the two places, were contrasted. That means their value was judged as not equal and different roles had been imposed on them.
The Challenge of Installation Art
The rise of installation art challenges principles developed for conserving traditional media. The conventional canon to honor the ' authentic ' object, already under some stress, becomes especially problematic when dealing with art whose meaning and materiality cannot be fixed. 1 In this chapter we outline the challenges that arise in conserving such ephemeral and contingent works. We suggest changes -some already underway -through which conservators may respond.