SachsSculptureStudio

shsachs@smcm.edu

Project 3- Site and Installation
ANALYSIS

Installation art specifically interacts with the identity of a space and takes all aspects of that space into account. Some people would even describe installation art as anti-object.

We interact with objects all day, but we interact with those objects in site specific, environmental, and cultural contexts that are too large to be ignored. Even artists who just make objects have to take environment into account. Where will the object be presented? On a wall, pedestal, inside, outside? Will people be able to touch it? Will it be titled or untitled? Artists have to make all of these decisions about how the art will engage space and viewers attention for object art. Installation art just places more emphasis, if not most emphasis, on these exterior issues.

ob·ject Something perceptible by one or more of the senses, especially by vision or touch; a material thing.

I don’t think that object art and installation art are totally unrelated. By the definition above, an object is something that is perceptible by one or more of the senses. This definition encompasses pretty much any space people inhabit and everything that makes up those spaces. The definition excludes any cultural, psychological reactions that one might have upon entering an environment or a space made from ‘objects’.
I think that what makes installation art different from object art is that it has more of an opportunity to influence emotions and mood and connotations that are evoked upon entering a space that can, and should, differ from one person to the next, but are guided/channeled by the artist/ architect/planner.