From margin to center: The spaces of installation art, 1958-1993.
Item
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Title
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From margin to center: The spaces of installation art, 1958-1993.
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Identifier
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AAI9630500
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identifier
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9630500
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Creator
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Reiss, Julie H.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Jack D. Flam
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Date
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1996
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Art History
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Abstract
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This study examines the development of Installation art in America from its emergence in the late 1950s as a radical art form shown primarily in alternative spaces, through its metamorphosis into a genre popular with major art museums in the early 1990s. Among the issues that are explored in the dissertation are the nature of the pressures that caused museums to become patrons of Installation art, and the way in which the protocols of museums impacted this radical art form, particularly in the area of spectator participation. Allan Kaprow's lasting contribution to the critical rhetoric of Installation art is discussed, as is the gradual critical acceptance of room-sized works of art. Kaprow showed his first Environment at the Hansa Gallery in New York eleven years before Installation art was first shown at the Museum of Modern Art, in the Spaces exhibition of 1969. In the 1970s, Installation art still flourished mainly outside the museum world, paralleling the emergence of new alternative spaces such as 112 Greene Street. The early 1990s saw the birth of Installation art as a museum form, with major museums not only mounting large group exhibitions of Installations, but also collecting the previously non-commodifiable form.;Installation art has received only marginal scholarly attention to date. Elusive and ephemeral, it has resisted definition and traditional art-historical approaches. This study offers a methodology for approaching Installation art that includes examination of its criticism, which functions in part as eye-witness accounts of works no longer extant; first-person interviews and photographic documentation. Close attention is also given to the effect of exhibition context. The issues of spectator participation and site-specificity are identified as defining characteristics of Installation art as a genre. The artists discussed include Allan Kaprow, Claes Oldenburg, Jim Dine, Patrick Ireland, Michael Asher, Gordon Matta-Clark, George Trakas, Mary Miss, Bruce Nauman, Ilya Kabakov and Christian Boltanski.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
