Preview

Installation Art and Theatrical Experience

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1756 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Installation Art and Theatrical Experience
To what extent can the encounter of Installation Art be likened to a theatrical experience?

Throughout Modernism, installation art has abandoned the confines of designated ‘art ' spaces in an attempt to fuse art with life. As the role of the viewer and everyday life became increasingly important installation art became comparable to the theatrical environment. Audiences found themselves enveloped in sensations, memories, and narratives.

‘Space and time [were] reborn ' when Vladimir Tatlin 's Monument to the Third International was conceived in 1919 as ‘a union of purely artistic forms (painting, sculpture and architecture) for a utilitarian purpose '1. In 1917 Tatlin designed the interior of Moscow 's Café Pittoresque with Rodchenko and Yakulov, in which constructions on the walls and ceiling disturbed and fractured the solidity of the space. Futurists celebrated this death of ‘Time and space '2 and Constructivists like El Lissitzky extended the sculptural possibilities of the gallery space itself; exemplary in the hanging of his Prouns in Berlin 's 1923 Russian exhibition.

This new approach to space in turn had a liberating effect on set design which concerned itself with deluding and involving its audience. Meyerhold 's productions ‘presented to the spectator a new consciousness of space and making him participate in the action '3. In the first performance of Famira Kafirel Exter 's scenography sought to construct its own environment by appealing to the spectators and inviting them to ‘discover the autonomy of pure forms '4. Contemporary set designers like Richard Wilson also manipulate space to the point of deception as shown in The life and Times of Joseph Stalin. This relates to Gregor Schneider and Richard Wilson 's installation art which is interested in the relationship between appearance and construction and the function of architecture and the environment it creates. Gregor Schneider 's Haus ur undermines its architectural foundations so that



Bibliography: Apocalypse (exh. Cat) The Royal Academy of Arts Art and Objection hood (1967) Michael Fried Bill Viola (exh. Cat.); Interview with the artist (1983) Deindre Boyle Blurring The Boundaries, Installation Art 1969-1996; A Legacy from Lascaux to Last Week (1997) Hugh M Deep End Richard Wilson in conversation with Paul Schimmel Defenders of the Faith (2002) Gordon Dalton Extinction Beckons / Magazine (2000) Mike Nelson IKON Gallery (February 1986) Richard Wilson in conversation with Lynne Cooke Installation Art (2003) Nicola Oxley / Michael Petry / Nicolas de Oliveira Installation Art from Duchamp to Holzer (2003) Mark Rosenthal Jamming Gean Richard Wilson The Life and Times of Joseph Stalin (1973) New York Matt 's Gallery Gail Pickering (Pradal, 2004) Modern Architecture (1980) Kenneth Frampton New Spirit in the Russian Theatre 1917-28 (1970) Huntly Carter Overlay (1983) Lucy Lippard The Prison House of Language - A critical account of Structuralism and Richard Wilson (February 1989) Michael Newman Russian Formalism (1972) Fredric Jameson Sensations (exh. Cat) The Royal Academy of Arts Sydney Biennale (2002) Abstract (1998) Larry J Solomon Visual Materials Visual Materials Monument to the Third International (1919) Vladimir Tatlin

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    For its first annual “ Forum” exhibition in 1917, Marcel Duchamp was the leading figure for displaying art for the, “American Society of Independent Artists” committee. Most significant, he anonymously submitted a work of art that would be so shocking and offensive…

    • 327 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    My recent visit to the Norton Simon Museum was very different than any previous experience I have had with modern art. With only a semester's worth of knowledge under my belt, I was most definitely in awe, and thoroughly entertained, to say the least. Although inspired by many, I chose to analyze two works with very similar subject matter, by two German Expressionist artists. I compared a piece entitled, "Bathing Girls", painted by Franz Marc, to the similarly titled "Bathers Beneath Trees"; a work by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner.…

    • 878 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    These are devices that can also elicit feelings of uncertainty, awe, and even terror in the spectator, whether one is looking at a close-up view of a flower or the splitting darkness of the Black Place. As a vertical work, the painting most closely relates to her magnified flower…

    • 438 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The second half of Leo Steinberg’s Other Criteria focuses on the differences between past artists and modern artists. Steinberg introduces the reader to the idea of having many objects merge into each other, instead of having many distinct objects in the piece with distinct lines and colors. He also brings up the idea of the flatbed picture plane. Instead of composing a piece with the idea of human posture in mind, these “flatbed” pieces are composed more like a worktable or a bulletin board.…

    • 1079 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    I chose to create a small art gallery to emphasize on the significance and symbolism of the subject of my space. “Stairs” by Rachel Whiteread was created in 2001 as one of the subject lines in her exhibit of a house called “ghost”. Thus, defining the idea of distance from reality, confusion, the upside down world, plainness, as well as, the psychological aspect that, plays tricks to the naked eye. The purpose of the sculpture is to make you question life with the variety of directional features in the sculpture. The design of my space has been created with an integration of themes by the selected geometric exterior walls and smooth texture. I created the exterior in such way resembles the shape of the stairs. The element…

    • 232 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    When I first observed the sculpture, I realized it was an installation. This three-dimensional work of art took up space in an art gallery and was designed to transform the perception of a space. The lines of the sculpture can be described as organized because the “X” is two straight…

    • 1116 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Lyric Modern Museum Report

    • 1025 Words
    • 5 Pages

    On November 12, 2015 I visited the gallery Lyric Modern created by an exceptional artist named Hal Marcus at El Paso Museum of Art. My first thoughts of visiting a museum were “boring”, “unexcited” and I just imagined myself going one work of art to another and describing it as if it was the textbook. As soon as I stepped into the museum my whole perspective changed, and at the end of the visit I had a different mindset. Lyric Modern was an outstanding exhibition, I did not only describe each composition individually, but I also compared them to each other. The focus of visiting the art exhibition is to know the overall descriptions of Hal Marcus art works, art works I admired the most and why, and the compositions I could not relate and seemed…

    • 1025 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Art Essay Hsc

    • 1341 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Artists throughout time are subjected to changing their practice due to context and issues within this time period. Artists that center around performance art, who use shock to convey their artworks, are subjected to change. Changes within the world inspire artists to create artworks that reflect these evolving aspects. Different developments in terms of practice have changed the world that we know. Advancements with technology, science and environment have influenced performance artists such pioneers in performance art Yves Klein, Stelarc and Ron Mueck who creates life like figures artworks that in their own way perform for the audience. These influences have shaped the performance artists practice, Klein’s use of monochrome art to represent the empty space surrounding the earth; the void, by using his own mix of the colour blue; Klein creates artworks to represent the empty space in the environment. In Klein’s later years he began to work with naked female models to create body prints. Likewise to stelarc’s use of incorporating technology within the body to make a hybrid or cyborg to reflect of what humans will become in the future, Stelarc looks at the body’s ability to expand or be altered as well as the mental capabilities of being fused with the cybernetic world. Technology has had a dramatic influence on Stelarc’s practice. Mueck creates life like sculptures often altering the size of the figures. Mueck’s use of creating grotesque, eerie life like sculptures shocks the audience, sometimes thinking that they would be real if they were the proper size ratio. Mueck’s art work ‘Dead Dad’ shocked audiences into believing that there could have been a real dead man lying on the floor. If the artwork were to be resurrected, friends and family would recognise the sculpture straight away, and to the…

    • 1341 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Best Essays

    Royal Academy of Arts. (February 05, 2013). Building the Revolution: Soviet Art and Architecture 1915-1935. Retrieved February 05, 2013, from http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/building-the-revolution/…

    • 2361 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    This essay will discuss a contemporary art piece by Diane Fenster and Michael McNabb. Their work, ‘Secrets of the Magdalene Laundries’ is an installation piece which was exhibited in New York and San Francisco between 2000 and 2004. Secrets of the Magdalene Laundries is a room size installation. It creates a symbolic laundry environment by combining the elements of both photography and sound. Exhibited in a white gallery, Secrets of the Magdalene Laundries consists of 15 bedsheets, ranging in sizes from normal to king size. It focuses not only on the exquisite photography but the public’s engagement through the use of a psychological fourth dimension.…

    • 658 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The incorporated performance multimedia used in conjunction with the use of space, enriches the meaning of each scene. The set of Joy Fear & Poetry consists of a plain cardboard structure positioned in the middle of the performance space. With the assistance of lighting and projected images, the space transforms to visually assist the dramatic action and/or meaning. An example of this is introduced in the beginning as the child actors use a couple of weak torch lights to explore the black area surrounding them. The thin rays as exchanged for spotlights which gradually illuminates the stage. In a dramatic context, this draws on the importance of joy to children and how it exploring it can introduce various revenues of the world they live in by “taking risks and mak[ing] discoveries” (Bell, dir. Budd). The lighting is also effectively used to indicate what the focus of the scene is on. During the first section, joy, the lighting was outside the house structure, creating an open and much larger area for the actors to work in. However the lighting gradually creeps closer to the house leading into the second section of fear. This deliberate effect highlights the increasing finding that childhood fears are founded and manifested at home. Projection is a further performance technology incorporated throughout the production. One of the most effective examples involved a girl sitting in a cube hole within the structure, behind a scrim with a tinted light projected to see a silhouetted object. This was effective as it…

    • 796 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mark Di Suvero Analysis

    • 1531 Words
    • 7 Pages

    A comparison of the installation/sculpture of Donald Lipski and the monumental-scale steel sculpture of Mark di Suvero reveals that both artists utilized the visual elements of color and a variance of space. Lipski used colorful, everyday objects and materials that are found at a construction site or furniture in an office and installed them, in a grouping of varying circles as a sculpture on a 60’ atrium wall of the Wellington E. Webb Municipal Building. Artist di Suvero chose the vibrancy of the color red for his 30’ steel sculpture that sits between the Denver Art Museum and…

    • 1531 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Kaprow Happenings Analysis

    • 1907 Words
    • 8 Pages

    “A happening is for those who happen in this world, for those who don’t want to stand off and just look. If you happen, you can’t be outside peeking in. You’ve got to be involved physically” (Kaprow, , )Allan Kaprow acted as central figure in the repositioning the art world of 1960’s, his Happenings were a form of impulsive, chance driven, non-linear action, that revolutionized performance art. Although Kaprow began as a painter, his curiosity shifted in the mid 1950’s to the theoretical, based on the altering concepts of space introspectively experienced by the beholder. He was among many artist and critics who fixated on an intellectual, theorized view on art, renouncing abstract expressionism works and instead looking on the act of their production.…

    • 1907 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Futurists Vs Dadaist

    • 1651 Words
    • 7 Pages

    ‘Live art’; is a strategy that embraces more than just performance. It is a means of introducing the human presence into the creative practice and often, especially in the case of the Futurists and Dadaists, with much broader social and political intentions. The Serate evenings of the Futurists and productions such as Depero’s 1924 ‘Mechanical Machine Ballet’ are examples of the way in which the performances of the movement developed far beyond the art of the painters and sculptors. It was through 'live' performance that the Futurists and later the Dadaists could directly engage with the audience and…

    • 1651 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Urban Surveillance

    • 302 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In your understanding of space, what are the works of these artists providing you with a new view of your relation to personal and public space?…

    • 302 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays