Installation art is an artistic genre of

three-dimensional In geometry, a three-dimensional space (3D space, 3-space or, rarely, tri-dimensional space) is a mathematical space in which three values (''coordinates'') are required to determine the position (geometry), position of a point (geometry), poi ...

works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called

public art Public art is art in any Media (arts), media whose form, function and meaning are created for the general public through a public process. It is a specific art genre with its own professional and critical discourse. Public art is visually and phy ...

land art Land art, variously known as Earth art, environmental art, and Earthworks, is an art movement that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, largely associated with Great Britain and the United StatesArt in the modern era: A guide to styles, schools, & mo ...

art intervention Art intervention is an interaction with a previously existing artwork, audience, venue/space or situation. It is in the category of conceptual art and is commonly a form of performance art. It is associated with Letterist International, Situation ...

; however, the boundaries between these terms overlap.

History

Installation art can be either temporary or permanent. Installation artworks have been constructed in exhibition spaces such as museums and galleries, as well as public and private spaces. The

genre Genre () is any style or form of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other fo ...

incorporates a broad range of everyday and natural materials, which are often chosen for their " evocative" qualities, as well as new media such as

video Video is an Electronics, electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving picture, moving image, visual Media (communication), media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, whi ...

sound In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the br ...

performance A performance is an act or process of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. It is also defined as the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function. Performance has evolved glo ...

, immersive virtual reality and the

internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

. Many installations are site-specific in that they are designed to exist only in the space for which they were created, appealing to qualities evident in a

immersive medium. Artistic collectives such as the Exhibition Lab at New York's

American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Located in Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 21 interconn ...

created environments to showcase the natural world in as realistic a medium as possible. Likewise,

Walt Disney Imagineering Walt Disney Imagineering Research & Development, Inc.—commonly referred to as Walt Disney Imagineering, Imagineering, or WDI—is the research and development arm of The Walt Disney Company, responsible for the creation, design, and construc ...

employed a similar philosophy when designing the multiple immersive spaces for

Disneyland Disneyland is a amusement park, theme park at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. It was the first theme park opened by the Walt Disney Company and the only one designed and constructed under the direct supervision of Walt Disney, ...

in 1955. Since its acceptance as a separate discipline, a number of institutions focusing on Installation art were created. These included the Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, the Museum of Installation in London, and the Fairy Doors of Ann Arbor, MI, among others. Installation art came to prominence in the 1970s but its roots can be identified in earlier artists such as

Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, ; ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, Futurism and conceptual art. He is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Pica ...

and his use of the readymade and

Kurt Schwitters Kurt Hermann Eduard Karl Julius Schwitters (20 June 1887 – 8 January 1948) was a German artist. He was born in Hanover, Germany, but lived in exile from 1937. Schwitters worked in several genres and media, including Dadaism, Constructivism (a ...

' ''Merz'' art objects, rather than more traditional

craft A craft or trade is a pastime or an occupation that requires particular skills and knowledge of skilled work. In a historical sense, particularly the Middle Ages and earlier, the term is usually applied to people occupied in small scale pr ...

based

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

. 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 The was a Japanese avant-garde artist group founded in the Hanshin region by young artists under the leadership of the painter Jirō Yoshihara in Ashiya, Japan, in 1954. It operated until shortly after Yoshihara's death in 1972. The group, tod ...

in Japan starting in 1954, which influenced American installation pioneers like

Allan Kaprow Allan Kaprow (August 23, 1927 – April 5, 2006) was an American performance artist, installation artist, painter, and assemblagist . He helped to develop the " Environment" and "Happening" in the late 1950s and 1960s, as well as their theory. ...

. Wolf Vostell shows his installation ''6 TV Dé-coll/age'' in 1963 at the

Smolin Gallery The Smolin Gallery was an avant-garde art venue and gallery on 57th Street (Manhattan), 57th Street in New York City, at its peak in the 1960s. It was known for its involvement with installation art, performance art and experimental art, and was be ...

in New York.

Installation

''Installation'' as nomenclature for a specific form of art came into use fairly recently; its first use as documented by the Oxford English Dictionary 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.

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 a broader sensory experience, rather than floating framed points of focus on a "neutral" wall or displaying isolated objects (literally) on a pedestal. This may leave

space Space is a three-dimensional continuum containing positions and directions. In classical physics, physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions. Modern physicists usually consider it, with time, to be part of a boundless ...

and

time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

as its only dimensional constants, implying 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".

Gesamtkunstwerk

The conscious act of artistically addressing all the senses with regard to a total experience made a resounding debut in 1849 when

Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most o ...

conceived of a ''

Gesamtkunstwerk A ''Gesamtkunstwerk'' (, 'total work of art', 'ideal work of art', 'universal artwork', 'synthesis of the arts', 'comprehensive artwork', or 'all-embracing art form') is a work of art that makes use of all or many art forms or strives to do so. ...

'', or an operatic work for the stage that drew inspiration from ancient Greek theater in its inclusion of all the major art forms:

painting Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

writing Writing is the act of creating a persistent representation of language. A writing system includes a particular set of symbols called a ''script'', as well as the rules by which they encode a particular spoken language. Every written language ...

music Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...

, etc. (Britannica). In devising operatic works to commandeer the audience's senses, Wagner left nothing unobserved:

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and construction, constructi ...

, ambience, and even the

audience An audience is a group of people who participate in a show or encounter a work of art, literature (in which they are called "readers"), theatre, music (in which they are called "listeners"), video games (in which they are called "players"), or ...

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 Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms, such as Text (literary theory), writing, Sound, audio, images, animations, or video, into a single presentation. T ...

and virtual reality environments".

Art and Objecthood

Franzoesischer Dom - Festival of Lights 2011

In "Art and Objecthood", Michael Fried derisively labels art that acknowledges the viewer as "

theatrical Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors to present experiences of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The performers may communic ...

" (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 A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether non-fictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travel literature, travelogue, etc.) or fictional (fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller ...

experience that surrounds him and maintain a degree of self-identity as a viewer. The traditional theater-goer does not forget that they have 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 they are in an exhibition setting and tentatively exploring the novel universe of the installation. The artist and critic Ilya Kabakov mentions this essential phenomenon in the introduction to his lectures "On the "Total" Installation": " neis 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". 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 brings 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 Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

and

offer somewhat immersive experiences, but their unrelenting control over the

rhythm Rhythm (from Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a " movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular r ...

of passing time and the arrangement of images precludes an intimately personal viewing experience. 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 A simulacrum (: simulacra or simulacrums, from Latin ''wikt:simulacrum#Latin, simulacrum'', meaning "likeness, semblance") is a representation or imitation of a person or thing. The word was first recorded in the English language in the late 16 ...

or flawed

statue A statue is a free-standing sculpture in which the realistic, full-length figures of persons or animals are carved or Casting (metalworking), cast in a durable material such as wood, metal or stone. Typical statues are life-sized or close to ...

: 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.

Interactive installations

An interactive installation frequently involves the audience acting on the work of art or the piece responding to users' activity. There are several kinds of interactive installations that artists produce, these include

web Web most often refers to: * Spider web, a silken structure created by the animal * World Wide Web or the Web, an Internet-based hypertext system Web, WEB, or the Web may also refer to: Computing * WEB, a literate programming system created by ...

-based installations (e.g., Telegarden), gallery-based installations,

digital Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Businesses *Digital bank, a form of financial institution *Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) or Digital, a computer company *Digital Research (DR or DRI), a software ...

-based installations, electronic-based installations, mobile-based installations, etc. Interactive installations appeared mostly at end of the 1980s (''Legible City'' by Jeffrey Shaw, ''La plume'' by Edmond Couchot, Michel Bret...) and became a genre during the 1990s, when artists became particularly interested in using the participation of the audiences to activate and reveal the meaning of the installation.

Immersive virtual reality

With the improvement of

technology Technology is the application of Conceptual model, conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals, especially in a reproducible way. The word ''technology'' can also mean the products resulting from such efforts, including both tangible too ...

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 Media may refer to: Communication * Means of communication, tools and channels used to deliver information or data ** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising ** Interactive media, media that is inter ...

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. By allowing the spectator to "visit" the representation, the artist creates "situations to live" vs "spectacle to watch".

Gallery

File:Firoz Mahmud Sucker Aichi Triennale 13.JPG, Firoz Mahmud, ''Sucker'wfp21'' aircraft sculptural installation at Aichi Arts Center. File:NEORIZON.jpg, Maurice Benayoun, ''Neorizon'', urban interactive art installation, eArts Festival Shanghai, 2008. File:Interiorpic2.jpg, Georges Lentz, '' Cobar Sound Chapel'', permanent sound installation, 2022. File:Eberhard Bosslet Installation Unterstützende Massnahmen anmassend I Kassel cocumenta 8 1987 .jpg, Eberhard Bosslet, ''Anmaßend I'',

documenta Documenta (often stylized documenta) is an Art exhibition, exhibition of contemporary art which takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany. Documenta was founded by artist, teacher and curator Arnold Bode in 1955 as part of the Bundesgarte ...

Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in North Hesse, northern Hesse, in Central Germany (geography), central Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel (region), Kassel and the d ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

1987. File:Aleya-milton-becerra.jpg, Milton Becerra, ''Ale'ya'', Durban Segnini Gallery,

Miami Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...

, 2009. Milton Becerra Book Analysis of a process over time - 2007 - File:Vasiliy Ryabchenko. "Big Bembi", installation, barrels, linear lamps, deer horns, 1994.jpg, Vasiliy Ryabchenko, ''Big Bembi'', 1994. File:Transmediale-2010-Ryoji Ikeda-Data-Tron-1.jpg,

Ryoji Ikeda Ryoji Ikeda (池田亮司 ''Ikeda Ryōji'', born 1966) is a Japanese Visual arts, visual and sound artist who currently lives and works in Paris, France. Ikeda's music is concerned primarily with sound in a variety of "raw" states, such as sine ...

, ''data.tron'' at transmediale,

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

, 2010. File:Christian Boltanski. Signatures.jpg, Christian Boltanski, ''Signatures'', 2011. File:Dombis 1687.jpg, Pascal Dombis, ''Irrationnal Geometrics'', 2008. File:My Inner Beast portrait.jpg, Jens Galschiøt, '' My Inner Beast'', sculpture, 1993. Exhibited in twenty cities across Europe without permission of the authorities. File:Test Site by Carsten Höller.jpg, Carsten Höller. '' Test Site'',

Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery in London, housing the United Kingdom's national collection of international Modern art, modern and contemporary art (created from or after 1900). It forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Live ...

, 2006. Members of public slid down as much as five stories inside tubular slides. File:Wolf Vostell, Fiebre de Automóvil, 1973, Instalación.JPG, Wolf Vostell, ''Auto-Fever'', 1973, Museo Vostell Malpartida. File:African Adventure, Tate Modern, November 2016 (01).JPG,

Jane Alexander Jane Alexander (née Quigley; born October 28, 1939) is an American-Canadian actress and author. She is the recipient of two Primetime Emmy Awards, a Tony Award, and nominations for four Academy Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards. From 1993 ...

, ''African Adventure'' ,1999-2002,

, Bankside, London, England, November 2016. File:DavidSpriggsArt.jpg, David Spriggs, ''Vision II'', 2017. File:H Cronhammar.JPG, Ingvar Cronhammar, installation in

Frederiksberg Frederiksberg () is a part of the Capital Region of Denmark. It is an independent municipality, Frederiksberg Municipality, separate from Copenhagen Municipality, but both are a part of the region of Copenhagen. It occupies an area of less tha ...

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

2015. File:Shalechet (Menashe Kadishman).jpg, Menashe Kadishman, ''Shalechet'' (

Abscission Abscission () is the shedding of various parts of an organism, such as a plant dropping a leaf, fruit, flower, or seed. In zoology, abscission is the intentional shedding of a body part, such as the shedding of a claw, husk, or the autotomy of a ...

), Jewish Museum Berlin.

References

Bibliography

* Cole, Ina, ''From the Sculptor’s Studio: Conversations with Twenty Seminal Artists'' (London: Laurence King Publishing Ltd, 2021) . * Bishop, Claire. Installation Art a Critical History. London: Tate, 2005. * Coulter-Smith, Graham. Deconstructing Installation Art
Online resource
* Ferriani, Barbara. ''Ephemeral Monuments: History and Conservation of Installation Art''. Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2013. * Fried, Michael. ''Art and Objecthood''. In ''Art and Objecthood: Essays and Reviews''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. * Grau, Oliver ''Virtual Art, from Illusion to Immersion'', MIT Press 2004, * "Installation nvironment''Grove Art Encyclopedia''. 2006. Grove Art Online. 30 January 200

* "Installation." Oxford English Dictionary. 2006. Oxford English Dictionary Online. 30 January 200

* "Install, v." ''Oxford English Dictionary''. 2006. Oxford English Dictionary Online. 30 January 200

* Murray, Timothy, Derrick de Kerckhove,

Oliver Grau Oliver Grau (born 24 October 1965) is a German art historian and Media studies, media theoretician who focuses on image science, modernity and media art as well as culture of the 19th century and Italian art of the Renaissance. His main areas of ...

, Kristine Stiles, Jean-Baptiste Barrière, Dominique Moulon, Jean-Pierre Balpe, ''Maurice Benayoun Open Art'', Nouvelles éditions Scala, 2011, French version, * 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. * Mondloch, Kate. ''Screens: Viewing Media Installation Art''. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010. * Nechvatal, Joseph, ''Immersive Ideals / Critical Distances''. LAP Lambert Academic Publishing. 2009. * * Reiss, Julie H. ''From Margin to Center: The Spaces of Installation Art''. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001. * Rosenthal, Mark. ''Understanding Installation Art: From Duchamp to Holzer''. Munich: Prestel Verlag, 2003. * Suderburg, Erika. Space, Site, Intervention: Situating Installation Art. Minneapolis London: University of Minnesota Press, 2000.

External links

Dossier: Site-specific Installations in Germany

Installation artists and art...the-artists.org

Museum of Installation (London): Interview with directors Nico de Oliveira & Nicola Oxley (2008)
''Sculpture'' / ''artdesigncafe''.
Public Art Installation Of Paul Kuniholm

Installation art definition from the Tate Art Glossary
Contemporary installation organizations and museums

The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art

The Mattress Factory Art Museum
Installation art
Electronic Language International Festival
Interactive art installations and New media art.
Media art center, Karlsruhe Germany
one of the biggest center with a permanent collection of interactive installations. {{Authority control Contemporary art movements Visual arts genres