How is installation different from sculpture?

A sculpture is typically a discrete object that the viewer looks at, whereas an installation arranges a whole space that the viewer enters and moves through; in installation the surrounding environment and the viewer's experience within it are part of the work itself.

How are temporary installations preserved?

Many installations are dismantled after their exhibition, so they survive chiefly through photographs, plans, instructions, and acquired components; museums increasingly collect such material and the artist's directions so a work can be reinstalled, though debate continues over whether this captures the original experience.

Installation Art

Installation art turns the gallery into the work: instead of looking at an object on a wall or pedestal, the viewer steps inside an arranged space and becomes part of it. The medium is the room, the objects within it, and the experience of moving through.

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Definition

Art that arranges objects, materials, and often light, sound, or media within a whole space so that the environment itself, experienced by an entering viewer, constitutes the work.

Scope

Covers installation as a genre: the activation of whole spaces, the centrality of the viewer's embodied experience, the use of mixed and ephemeral materials, and the genre's relation to the gallery and museum. Treats installation in general; its binding to particular places is handled in the site-specific topic.

Core questions

What distinguishes installation from a sculpture displayed in a room?
How does installation make the viewer's bodily presence central to the work?
How does the use of ephemeral and mixed media affect the status of installation?
What is installation's relation to the gallery and the institution that houses it?

Key concepts

the activated viewer
environment
mixed media
ephemerality
the white cube
spatial experience

Key theories

The decentered, embodied viewer: Bishop argues that installation art is defined by its address to an embodied viewer who must physically enter and move through the space, decentering the single contemplative viewpoint of traditional art.
Installation as activated environment: Reiss traces how installation developed from environments and happenings into a practice in which the spectator's presence in an arranged space is integral to the work's meaning.

History

Installation grew out of 1950s and 1960s environments, happenings, and Minimalism's concern with real space, becoming a recognized genre by the 1970s and a dominant contemporary form thereafter. Reiss's 1999 history traced its development, and Bishop's 2005 critical history analyzed how different installations construct the viewing subject.

Debates

Documentation and the ephemeral: Because many installations are temporary and dismantled after exhibition, debate centers on how such works are collected, preserved, and known to later audiences, and whether documentation can substitute for the original experience.

Key figures

Claire Bishop
Julie H. Reiss
Nicolas de Oliveira

Seminal works

bishop2005
reiss1999
deoliveira2003

Frequently asked questions

How is installation different from sculpture?: A sculpture is typically a discrete object that the viewer looks at, whereas an installation arranges a whole space that the viewer enters and moves through; in installation the surrounding environment and the viewer's experience within it are part of the work itself.
How are temporary installations preserved?: Many installations are dismantled after their exhibition, so they survive chiefly through photographs, plans, instructions, and acquired components; museums increasingly collect such material and the artist's directions so a work can be reinstalled, though debate continues over whether this captures the original experience.