Unlike traditional art works, installation art has no autonomous                  existence. It is usually created at the exhibition site, and its essence is                  spectator participation. Installation art originated as a radical art form presented                  only at alternative art spaces; its assimilation into mainstream museums and                  galleries is a relatively recent phenomenon. The move of installation art from the                  margin to the center of the art world has had far-reaching effects on the works                  created and on museum practice.This is the first book-length study of installation                  art. Julie Reiss concentrates on some of the central figures in its emergence,                  including artists, critics, and curators. Her primary focus is installations created                  in New York City--which has a particularly rich history of installation                  art--beginning in the late 1950s. She takes us from Allan Kaprow's 1950s'                  environments to examples from minimalism, performance art, and process art to                  establish installation art?s autonomy as well as its relationship to other                  movements.Recent years have seen a surge of interest in the effects of exhibition                  space, curatorial practice, and institutional context on the spectator. The history                  of installation art--of all art forms, one of the most defiant of formalist                  tenets--sheds considerable light on the issues raised by this shift of critical                  focus from isolated art works to art experienced in a particular context.

From Margin to Center: The Spaces of Installation Art PDF

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