Makeeva, Svetlana O. Defining Installation Art through Site-Specificity and Ephemerality: The Works of ‘Light and Space’

Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://dx.doi.org/10.18688/aa2212-05-42
Title Defining Installation Art through Site-Specificity and Ephemerality: The Works of ‘Light and Space’
Author email s.o.makeeva@yandex.ru
About author Makeeva, Svetlana O. — Ph. D. student, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Leninskie Gory, 1, 119991 Moscow, Russian Federation. ORCID: 0000-0001-8525-5106
In the section International Art in the 20th and 21st Centuries DOI10.18688/aa2212-05-42
Year 2022 Volume 12 Pages 542–553
Type of article RAR Index UDK 7.038.3, 7.038.55 Index BBK 85.19
Abstract

The 1960–1970s saw a new artform emerging, one that came to be central to international contemporary art — namely, installation art. The Californian art movement ‘Light and Space’, which encompasses artist such as Robert Irwin, Michael Asher, James Turrell, Doug Wheeler, Maria Nordman, Larry Bell, Eric Orr, and Bruce Nauman, developed a distinct installation type that stood out among other installations created in New York or Europe at the time. The “empty” ‘Light and Space’ installations suppose barely discernible alterations of a given room and turn the viewer’s attention to the process of his/her own perception. This practice was partly informed by the artists’ interest in Edmund Husserl’s and Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, as well as in cognitive sciences aimed at exploring the patterns of perception.

In this paper, the characteristic traits of ‘Light and Space’ installations are traced in the works by Robert Irwin — the movement’s leader — whose oeuvre is viewed within the general installation art problematics. It is argued that ephemerality and site-specificity were the installation art traits most profoundly elaborated in ‘Light and Space’ pieces compared to other installation works by Kaprow, Arman, Broodthaers, Buren, Serra, and Kabakov. The issues of ephemerality and site-specificity are covered building on the important late essay ‘A Spherical Art’ by Celant, as well as texts by Kaprow, Kabakov, Buren, Kwon, Crimp, and Irwin himself, which helps touch on another issue crucial to the studying of installation art — that of its definition.
Keywords
Reference Makeeva, Svetlana O. Defining Installation Art through Site-Specificity and Ephemerality: The Works of ‘Light and Space’. Actual Problems of Theory and History of Art: Collection of articles. Vol. 12. Eds A. V. Zakharova, S. V. Maltseva, E. Iu. Staniukovich-Denisova. — St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg Univ. Press, 2022, pp. 542–553. ISSN 2312-2129. http://dx.doi.org/10.18688/aa2212-05-42
Publication Article language russian
Bibliography
  • A Report on the Art and Technology Program of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1967–1971. Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum of Art Publ., 1971. 387 p.
  • Auping M. Stealth Architecture: The Rooms of Light and Space. Clark R. (ed.). Phenomenal: California Light, Space, Surface. Berkeley, University of California Press Publ., 2011, pp. 79–104.
  • Bahtsetzis S. Geschichte der Installation. Situative Erfahrungsgestaltung in der Kunst der Moderne. Technische Universität Berlin Publ., 2006. 313 p. (in German).
  • Bishop C. Installation Art: A Critical History. London, Routledge Publ., 2005. 144 p.
  • Buren D. Function of the Studio. Bronson A. A.; Gale P. (eds.). Museums by Artists. Toronto, Art Metropole Publ., 1983, pp. 61–68.
  • Clark R. Phenomenal: An Introduction. Clark R. (ed.). Phenomenal: California Light, Space, Surface. Berkeley, University of California Press Publ., 2011, pp. 19–78.
  • Crimp D. Serra’s Public Sculpture: Redefining Site Specificity. Krauss R. E.; Rosenstock L. (eds.). Richard Serra. Sculpture. New York, The Museum of Modern Art Publ., 1986, pp. 40–56.
  • De Oliveira N.; Oxley N.; Petry M.; Archer M. Installation Art. London, Thames & Hudson Publ., 1994. 208 p.
  • De Oliveira N.; Oxley N.; Petry M. Installation Art in the New Millennium: The Empire of the Senses. London, Thames & Hudson Publ., 2003. 208 p.
  • Eco U. The Open Work. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press Publ., 1989. 285 p.
  • Ferriani B.; Pugliese M. Ephemeral Monuments: History and Conservation of Installation Art. Los Angeles, Getty Conservation Institute Publ., 2013. 280 p.
  • Fried M. Art and Objecthood. Art and Objecthood. Essays and Reviews. Chicago, London, University of Chicago Press Publ., 1998, pp. 148–172.
  • Hapgood S.; Kaprow A. Interview with Allan Kaprow. Hapgood S. Neo-Dada: Redefining Art, 1958–1960. New York, American Federation of the Arts Publ., 1994, pp. 115–121.
  • Irwin R. Notes toward a Model. Robert Irwin. New York, Whitney Museum of American Art Publ., 1977, pp. 23–31.
  • Irwin R.; Simms M. (eds.). The State of the Real: Robert Irwin Discusses the Activities of an Extended Consciousness. Notes toward a Conditional Art. Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum Publ., 2011, pp. 49–53.
  • Kabakov I. On The “Total” Installation. Bielefeld, Kerber Publ., 2008. 287 p.
  • Kaizen W. Framed Space: Allan Kaprow and the Spread of Painting. Grey Room, 2003, no. 13, pp. 80–107.
  • Kaprow A. Assemblages, Environments and Happenings. Harrison C.; Wood P. (eds.). Art in Theory 1900–2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas. Oxford, Blackwell Publ., 1999, pp. 703–709.
  • Kaprow A. From “Assemblages, Environments and Happenings”. Wood J.; Hulks D.; Potts A. (eds.). Modern Sculpture Reader. Leeds, Henry Moore Institute, 2012, pp. 226–234.
  • Kochetkova E. S. Horizon as a Symbolic Category in Contemporary Site-Specific Art. Actual Problems of Theory and History of Art, 2020, vol. 10, pp. 576–585. DOI: 10.18688/aa200-3-51
  • Kwon M. One Place after Another: Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity. Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press Publ., 2002. 218 p.
  • Makeeva S. O. Rhetoric of Arts’ Boundaries in the 1960s and the Establishing of Postmedial Installation Art. Actual Problems of Theory and History of Art, 2020, vol. 10, pp. 555–565 (in Russian). DOI: 10.18688/aa200-3-49
  • Merleau-Ponty M. Eye and Mind. Merleau-Ponty M.; Edie J. M. (eds.); Dallery C. (trans.). The Primacy of Perception. Evanston, Northwestern University Press Publ., 1964, pp. 159–190.
  • Petersen A. R. Installation Art between Image and Stage. Copenhagen, Museum Tusculanum Press Publ., 2015. 507 p.
  • Potts A. The Sculptural Imagination: Figurative, Modernist, Minimalist. London and New Haven, Yale University Press Publ., 2000. 432 p.
  • Ran F. A History of Installation Art and the Development of New Art Forms: Technology and the Hermeneutics of Time and Space in Modern and Postmodern Art from Cubism to Installation. New York, Peter Lang Publishing Inc. Publ., 2009. 256 p.
  • Rebentisch J. Aesthetics of Installation Art. Berlin, Sternberg Press Publ., 2012. 296 p.
  • Reiss J. H. From Margin to Center: the Spaces of Installation Art. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press Publ., 1999. 181 p.
  • Schuld D. Practically Nothing: Light, Space, and the Pragmatics of Phenomenology. Clark R. (ed.). Phenomenal: California Light, Space, Surface. Berkeley, University of California Press Publ., 2011, pp. 105–122.
  • Smith R. In Installation Art, a Bit of the Spoiled Brat. The New York Times, 1993, 3 Jan. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/1993/01/03/arts/art-view-in-installation-art-a-bit-of-the-spoiled-brat.html (accessed 26 May 2020)
  • Suderburg E. Introduction: On Installation and Site-Specificity. Space, Site, Intervention: Situating Installation Art. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press Publ., 2000, pp. 1–22.
  • Weschler L.; Irwin R. Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees: A Life of Contemporary Artist Robert Irwin. Berkeley, University of California Press Publ., 1982. 212 p.
  • Wortz M. Surrendering to Presence: Robert Irwin’s Esthetic Integration. Artforum, 1981, vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 63–69.