Installation art

The Origins of Installation Art : Tracing Installation from

Pollackian and Duchampian Ideas and Practice

Abstract Installation art includes and activates the viewer 's and the artwork 's space . In today 's contemporary society , one can go anywhere in the urban community and see the foundations of installation art without even knowing it . Primarily , it is important to accept installation art as part of our everyday lives . As the role of the viewer and everyday life become increasingly important , installation art becomes comparable to theatrical environment . The transformation to the installation art

we know today is indebted to the influence of numerous artistic movements including Surrealism , Abstractionism , Expressionism and Minimalism - to name a few . Some say installation art emerged from 50s when Jackson Pollack liberated the frame introducing gestures beyond the canvas by freely throwing paint on the large , open sheet of burlap . Others believe the influence came before that time from the Dadaists , and in particular , Marcel Duchamp , who took the everyday object and hung it in a gallery space . I will compare these two beliefs regarding origin of installation art , and how this genre has became a dominant strategy among artists for engaging viewers in and with their artistic ideas

Introduction

Installation art is not a new phenomenon .Although installation art as a concept gained much prominence in the late 70s and became officially acknowledged as an art form by the 90s , it has actually been around for decades . Scholars contend that modern forms of installation art have been around as early as the beginning of the 19th century . There is consensus , however , that installation art , as a specific genre , has become harder and harder to distinguish from other forms of art . In this , I will trace the origins of installation art and how its emergence was influenced by the various artistic movements . I will argue that both the Pollackian and Duchampian methods and ideas contributed to the formation of installation art by deconstructing and redefining art and in the process changing how artists viewed their contributions to the artistic domain and how the audience was affected by these changes

Installation art , like almost all forms of postmodern art , is difficult to define

For instance , Claire Bishop laments that almost any arrangement of objects in a given space can now be referred to as installation art from a conventional display of paintings to a few well-placed sculptures in a garden (Bishop ) In the same manner , Michael Kimmelman observes that installation art as a nomenclature and frame of reference has become too vague to be of lasting value ' referring to the fact that one person 's installation turns out to be another 's earthwork or performance space or video display or just plain sculpture (1 Indeed , the demarcation between installation art and other forms of art has grown thinner as it has evolved into strategy , a way of working (Ibid ) for many contemporary artists who refuse to be bound by traditional artistic conventions

Arguably , the difficulty in arriving at...