Sunday, October 23, 2005

Installation art

As per installation art there’s always a relationship between void and mass. Art brings illusion, whether as a flat rectangle -as in painting- or as sculpture. Ancient pyramids are huge geometric solids (there’s no division between Amun and the Pharaoh). Athens’ Parthenon brings forth the idea of order, symmetry and scale in function of the citizen. Fast-forward 500 years to Rome’s Pantheon and we find a redefinition of the private/public in the stability and permanence of the empire. In Romanesque architecture the inside means worship and domesticity, while the outside remains dangerous (thus the fortress). Modern science redefines our relationship with space. With the invention of the elevator, buildings can go up dozens of stories; the car (a little room on wheels) takes our intimate living outside. With quantum mechanics, space becomes non-Euclidean. 20th-century art erases the boundaries between object/subject, inside/outside, private/public with Kurt Schwitters’ Merzbau, Duchamp’s ready-mades, the vast canvases of Pollock, Newman and Still, Frank Stella’s shaped canvases (which broke the hegemony of the rectangle), Sol Lewitt’s wall drawings, Carl Andre’s flat sculptures, Smithson’s earth works, Kaprow’s happenings, Claes Oldenburg’s The Store, and the tableaux of Segal, Kienholz and Tom Wasselmann. Today, buildings look sculptural (Gehry's Guggenheim Museum), while interiors are designed as exteriors (Zaha Hadid).

16 comments:

Josh said...

i think an interesting tool in bringing the outside to the inside is the window. although the window's glass and panes separate one from the inside or outside, the inhabitant is a member of an audience that is viewing a picture that is everchanging (depending upon the environment). when moves side to side they garner another perspective of this picture. the development of the window and the materials that made it possible was something that people struggled to accomplish for centuries. with technology came the advancement of the window, which then allowed different aesthetic approaches and gave people worldwide a new way to view their glass painting into the other realm. whether that was the inside or outside or another room, it's almost like watching an early movie...motion through a contained frame.

naomi witt said...

I want a solid definition for installation art. I fell like none of the piece that were presented into the blog qualified as such. They are sculpture or architectural or even one was a painting. The candies on the floor piece or the empty pool you have to walk into in the MOMA or an interactive light show where where you stand makes the lights change are more what I think of when I hear installation. Plus installation seams like a more modern term I don’t think an instillation was what the Romans were going for when they left the oculus in the center of the Pantheon ceiling.

AT said...

Of course, Naomi. All I'm saying is that with the benefit of time, one could say that these (Euclidean) manipulations of space associated with architecture preclude our (non-Euclidean) view of the world. Artists have reflected these changes between private and public and subjective and objective.

Heidi said...

This weekend I was watching an art documentary that we have in the library. It has interesting installations. The artist that I like the most is a Corean who's last name is Suh. Did you heard about him,Triff? He is great!He has incredible ideas. He made a kimono out of dog tags (those military identifications) that took a whole room.If somebody wants to watch the video it's Art 21-dvd 1206.
Heidi

Heidi said...

According to what I understand about installations the only one that in my opinion doesn't fit in this group is Picasso's Guernica.Is this one an installation? Why? would you tell us?
Heidi

amanda said...

I couldnt agree more abour being confused about installations. these examples include something of everything...architecture, sculpture, paintings. so are installations just an overall term of any work of design? i hadnt heard of "installation" related to art until i took this class, and until viewing these examples i always thought of installations as strange arangements of items that have some abstract idea. After looking at these it seems anything could fit into the category. I see the connection of mass and space with the 3D structures...but the 2D Picasso painting is what throws me off. the painting is taking up space, but pretty much any mass created is going to occupy space. so installations are any kind of creation? The Diesete's church is beautiful with its loopy shadows and curvy rooftop. Its lines seem playful and whisical for a church making it so non-traditional. I feel the rooftop curves make it a success of mass vs. space because the pos/neg. between the roof(the mass) and the sky(the space)

Lisa Schwal said...

I too am quite confused on the matter of installation art work. You mention mostly pieces of architecture when mentioning installations. I thought that architecture was simply that: a building. Yes it can function as a piece of art but I always thought it would take on sculptural qualities that can also be interactive. When I think of an installation, I keep thinking about that one guy you told us about that piled the candy all over the floor and expected the viewers to interact with it by picking up a piece. This work was all encompassing and would definately fit my definition of an installation, as would the Claes Oldenberg's "Store". How is architecture an installation? IM CONFUSED!! :(

AT said...

Kids: It seems that we are having problems with definitions: If we define “installation” as a conceptual arrangement of solids in space, architecture can be seen as installation. But I don’t even want to say that. What I’m trying to do is to show you how these things have an origin. The Parthenon and the Pantheon are not “installations” per se, but they also manipulate space and volumes conceptually, which is pretty interesting. Until quantum physics, we thought that point, line and plane (the main elements of Euclid’s geometry) were the only ways of representing space. But at the atomic level, electrons and positrons don’t move in that space. And art --throughout the 20th century--has been very aware of that. There are so many examples I can think of arrangements outside the box: Picasso’s Glass of Absinthe, Schwitters’ Merzbau, Expressionist perspective, Futurist and the Surrealist ways of curating exhibitions, the interior spaces of the Italian designers in the 1970’s, they all showed concerns that finally crystallized with the idea of installation as we know it today. Look at Gehry’s or Hadid’s buildings. So, although Picasso’s Guernica or Pollock’s huge canvases are not installation per se, they represent a gesture that contributes and makes installation as we know it today possible.

Nydia said...

Perhpaps installation art is just a mixture of everything: architecture, painting, sculpture, etc. or something like that. I often thought of installation art as standing on its own but still being able to be attached to something like the wall or the floor so it cannot be moved. I've seen those kind of statue pieces of George Segal's at FIU ( I imagine they sre his unless someone was trying to imitate him). I aways liked those because it would look like no one was sitting alone. Perhaps what seperates installation from architecture and the such is that you can interact with it (to a certain extent perhaps). It something you have to come up close to and touch. Wasn't Bernie's Elevator piece considered installation because as you walked through the elevator the music would play and people would be surprised by it? Maybe installation is a piece of art that can be assembled and disassembled at different times, unlike architecture that stands forever until it is bulldozed or destroyed by nature? I don't know! I'm just trying to come up with a better way to understand the definition of installation.

AT said...

That's not bad at all Nydia.

Natalia said...

I found structures such as the Parthenon in Athens and the Pantheon in Rome as cultural legacies that represent the enormous talent of architects at that time. The Parthenon is a building full of symbolism and beauty. It has no straight lines; they actually curve slightly. The line of steps from which the columns rise curves down towards the corners of the building. It is supported in the front and back porch by columns and is surrounded by a Doric peristyle. The column shafts themselves taper gradually up, while the columns at the corner were made thicker that the others and closer to their neighbours. On the other hand, The Pantheon is one of the most amazing architectural structures of the Roman Empire. What I found most interesting about this building is that in the center there is an enormous domed cylinder with an opening allowing the light to enter the building and inside the building no columns are needed which gives a sensation of cosmic spaciousness. An intriguing fact about the Pantheon is that it was one of the first buildings where the true glory of the building lies in its interior in contrast to Greek temples where the focus is on the exterior rather that the interior

anita said...

i don't really know what else to say. seems like everyone's said what i wanted to say or has asked what i wanted to ask.
one thing though, i've never been one to turn my face from an installation, but the discussion in class on where installations come from and what they are influenced from, directly or indirectly, makes me appreciate them even more.
i never thought that it was a reaction to euclydian space. it never occurred to me.

that makes me wonder.
of what is performance art a reaction to?

Sarah Schermerhorn said...

I am also confused about what exactly installation art is. Before our discussions, I had just assumed it was art that was made directly on the floor or wall where it was displayed. So are all statues and architecture installation art? I guess I understand the basic concept, but it seems to be similar to our “what is art” conversation. It just goes in circles.

AT said...

It doesn't go in circles. What happens is that some discussions need patience and some are discouraged for lack of easy answers (by the way, I'm not saying you are one of those people, Sarah). Ana: Same happens with performance and theater. If non-Euclidean space changed our views on space and presentation of art, the same happened with performance. The clean classic distinction between stage and audience or acting vs. acting reception has changed. Since Dada performances and Futurist Theater, the idea of “acting” was challenged. “Happenings” in the 1960’s subverted the notion of narrative, plot and plan. The “arena” theater brought the audience right into the stage. In avant-garde absurd theater, actors moved to the audience and vice versa. Auteurs like Grotowsky and the choreographies of Pina Bausch have incorporated and merged dance and “abnormal” behaviors into theater movement. Performance art takes from theater, but also from video art, movies, literature, dance and the amazing revision of the body (particularly the female body, so fetishzed in the West and some parts of the East). We can discuss more of this some other time.

peter said...

To be honest most of the time I look over installation art. But I do like when installations/sculptures conflict with or intrude on my personal space and the its surroundings whether it's inside a building or outside.

Dominic Halley-Roarke said...

I wish Wes Charles had been able to come to class as he has done alot of installation art. One such piece was quite unfogettable as it was based on the Three Pigs story and came complete with a live piglet. This installation was not only visual but incorporated sound (both of the pig and some recorded sounds, I think of bacon frying) and smell (or shall I say odor??).
The commercial aspect of some intallation art is easy to see (such as an architect's fees); but I would be interested in how some installation artists make their living at this, especially if their work has a transitory or site specific quality that cannot be easily sold (as does performance art).