Summary
Installation art is a term generally used to describe artwork located in three-dimensional interior space as the word "install" means putting something inside of something else. It is often site-specific - designed to have a particular relationship, whether temporary or permanent, with its spatial environment on an architectural, conceptual, or social level. It also creates a high level of intimacy between itself and the viewer as it exists not as a precious object to be merely looked at but as a presence within the overall context of its container whether that is a building, museum, or designated room. Artworks are meant to evoke a mood or a feeling, and as such ask for a commitment from the viewer. The movement remains separate from its similar forms such as Land art, Intervention art, and Public art yet there are often overlaps between them. The ideas behind a piece of Installation art, and the responses it elicits, tend to be more important than the quality of its medium or technical merit. Artists champion this genre for its potential to transform the art world by surprising audiences and engaging viewers in new ways.
Key Ideas
Most Important Art
Étant donnés (1966)
The piece was described by the artist Jasper Johns as "the strangest work of art in any museum." At the time, it was. Imagine peering through two peepholes in a wooden door to find a reclining cast of a nude woman in the forefront of a lusciously painted landscape. By crafting an experience of voyeurism, rather than simply showing a traditional nude painting on the wall, Duchamp forced the viewer into a sense of complicity. Only one person at a time could peek in, making this a very enveloping experience and creating an intimate encounter with the work's enigmatic inhabitant.
The Dinner Party (1974-1979)
By creating this emulation of an event that audience members could easily relate to -the honorary dinner - and by designing the piece in a triangular fashion that would promote many people walking around and reviewing the place settings simultaneously, the artist sparked dialogue about these women who had been under-documented in history. Viewing the piece became an event in itself. By delivering her message through a three-dimensional, physical piece rather than a written manifesto or painted tableau, she proved the power in the presence signature to Installation art.
Wall Drawing #260, On Black Walls, All Two-Part Combinations of White Arcs from Corners and Sides, and White Straight, Not-Straight, and Broken Lines (1975)
This seminal line of work inaugurated a new relationship between drawing and architectural spaces, furthering Installation art's site-specificity. By claiming entire walls, LeWitt's drawings responded to the spaces they occupied and enclosed viewers in work that alternated between soothing symmetry and dazzling randomness.
These drawings were also radical inclusions into the Installation art canon because they challenged the preciousness and permanence that is expected from fine art. They are birthed in conceptualism and carried out with simple tools. They are not confined to the originating artists' hand and they can be duplicated in multiple settings ad infinitum.
Electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii (1995)
For this piece, the artist arranged over 300 TV screens into the shape of a map of the United States and outlined each state with bright neon lights, with each screen playing video clips reminiscent of the state it represents. Forty feet long and fifteen feet high, the work is a monumental record of the physical and cultural contours of America. Aside from delineating each state firmly, the neon outlines also represented the web of interstate highways that were increasingly unifying the country both economically and culturally. Encountering this massive installation was an overwhelming experience - the amalgam of voices, light, and information became a noisy testament of how the advent of media completely transformed American lives.
My Bed (1998)
The one thing critics and enthusiasts alike can agree on is that My Bed forever changed the course of Installation art with its blatant realism. By taking her actual bed and displaying it as art Emin furthered the development of the movement's concern with bringing a more intimate experience to the viewer. The visually narrative portrait of Emin's life at the time and its candid nature created an engulfing atmosphere that eloquently evoked genuine experience. Audience members might either shudder in revulsion over the scene of personal debauchery or shirk guiltily inward with the knowledge that we all harbor our own dirty laundry. This piece also distanced itself resolutely from representational art as it reveled in its own mundanity and refused to stand in for any loftier concerns.
Work No. 227: The lights going on and off (2000)
By playing solely with light in this minimalist piece, the artist sought to jostle viewer expectations. Creed wanted people to interact with the space as if it were a non-static entity and to gain new perspectives of something familiar - a key tool of Installation art. He did so by toying with their preconceived expectations of a seemingly dormant place. When encountering its animation, audiences were forced to interact more attentively with the room's physicality. Through subtle and mundane interventions Creed, like many other installation artists, was able to engage viewers in new ways.
Obliteration Room (2002)
Kusama was careful to choose a domestic environment that audiences would find familiar so that participants, especially children, would feel comfortable engaging with the work freely. The piece was her way of engaging with the surface of an architectural space and of handing over some of the creative process to the audience, thus involving them fully in the development of this spotted interior. This dynamic piece took Installation art's history of active viewer participation one step further by allowing them to actually co-create the work. It also allowed them to become fully immersed in an experience that significantly affected the senses but was also true to the artist's singular voice. Kusama is famously known for suffering life-long mental illness and polka dot-infused hallucinations, so in a way, this piece invited viewers to share a vivid glimpse into her own barraged mind.
The Matter of Time (2005)
The Matter of Time is an installation comprising one of Serra's older sculptures, entitled Snake, in addition to 8 new, torqued pieces of steel. It occupies an entire gallery space in the Guggenheim Bilbao Museo. The different shapes made of weathered metal vary from simple elliptical ones to more complex spiral forms, and as viewers walk among these forms they move through varying passages of steel. The spaces between the sheets of curved metal change from being narrow and encroaching to being wide and open causing the viewer to experience constant disorientation. Serra's choice of material, with its textured rust and spectrum of browns and oranges, adds yet another layer of visual interest to this breathtaking installation.
Shibboleth (2007)
Rain Room (2012)
Rain Room represents the exciting contemporary cross section of creativity, science, and technology currently informing cutting-edge installations that expand our traditional ideas of art.