This article discusses the blurred boundaries between what can (or should) be considered “installation art”, and what does not comply with its sometimes unclear definitive characteristics. Claire Bishop points to the similarities and differences between installation art and an installation of works of art: “Both point to a desire to heighten the viewer's awareness of how objects are positioned (installed) in a space, and of our response to that arrangement,” but “In a piece of installation art... the whole situation in its totality claims to be the work of art,” whereas an installation of works of art is a collection of “separate entities” (Bishop).
What I found to be most interesting is how Bishop describes the ways in which installation art involves the spectator by immersing him or her in the totalizing effect of the work’s environment. Bishop mentions that in the 1970’s, installation art was used by some artists (such as Vito Acconci) to activate the spectator as a parallel for political activism that was the opposite of the passive spectatorship of watching mass-media television. This specific purpose of installation art reminds me strongly of Brechtian theatre techniques as a response to the Wagnerian style of passive, irresponsible voyeurism in the theater. Brecht’s theater used various techniques (such as making the apparatuses of production visible to the spectator) in order to continuously remind the spectator of their presence in the theater, and to make them active, responsible political agents. I believe that Brechtian theater and installation art are similar in that they both attempt to involve the spectator and to make him or her “the main actor” in the piece of art.
I agree with the critics of the magazine October that it is problematic how popular and institutionalized installation art has become. While I appreciate the fact that the genre has been given credibility as an art form by the museums in which it is shown, the fact that galleries are containing installations which, historically, were created in order to undermine and subvert the bourgeois elitism of “high art” galleries, is somewhat insulting to the genre’s integrity. And yet, as Bishop notes, installation art, by definition, needs viewers in order to be experienced and remembered. How can installation art purport to subvert the elitism of The Gallery while it uses it as a host to gain audiences? I believe this question is integral to understanding our current perceptions of installation art.
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