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