Art & the History of Art 210 - Installation

The history and practice of installation art is one of hybridity: drawing from sources such as minimalism, conceptual art, soft architecture, site-specificity, land and environmental art, video, performance, and feminist art. The work of installation engages the aural, spatial, visual, and environmental planes of perception. It grows out of the collapse of a work's autonomy, medium specificity, and sense of eternal and inert matter. In this course we will seek to answer a number of questions about the nature of installation: How does work get contextualized and redefined through its placement within a larger social, political, and economic sphere of meaning? Why is installation art interested in spectator participation? What is the nature of this participation? Where does it intersect with performance art and sculpture? How do immersive installations shift our bodily, sensory experience of a work—being inside of a piece as opposed to looking in? Where do we see the blurring between medium, material, and site? We will investigate options and determinants operative in both indoor and outdoor sites, installations, and environments. The term will begin by exploring a particular and fairly broad history through texts, images, and videos to situate our experiments within a context.

Limited to 12 students. Fall Semester. Visiting Artist-in-Residence Reed.