Monday, August 10, 2009

Zurbrugg and Installation

Zurbrugg begins by explaining what Installation Art is. He says "the most common feature is the use of three-dimensional space”p25. “Its characteristics being to install, outside or around the exhibition space”p25. “ Installation Art materials range from static, dynamic and interactive combinations of organic, graphic, typographic, plastic, sonic, kinetic, photographic, filmic, videomatic, telematic, cybernetic and virtual representation of everything from material, physical, environmental and mechanical realities, to evocation of conceptual, theoretical, spiritual and metaphysical experience” p25. Finishing his introduction with his title’s meaning. “That its physical existence as an Installation responding to a particular spatial or environmental context determines it specific aesthetic essence as Installation Art” p26.
Zurbrugg now suggests where Installation Art derived from and its future movement from there. “ Installation Art in terms of the early twentieth-century avant-garde movement, such as futurism, the Bauhaus experiments, dada, surrealism and constructivism” p26. And Installation Arts development from modernism to postmodernism. Giving evidence of this with example Artists that work with this medium. Zurbrugg finishes with explaining why society enjoys Installation Art and why it is different from the rest. “Postmodernism Installation challenges and extends our preconceptions regarding arts material, conceptual, institutional and authorial parameters” p25. And quotes French Surrealist Poet Arragon, “ The most positive forms of postmodern art realise and revolutionise what the most positive modernists ‘dreamed’ that art might become, ‘after us, beyond us” p26. In his conclusion Zurbrugg says, “The most rewarding installations are perhaps those which imply or enact some sort of movement”p31.
I think Zurbrugg explains clearly what Installation Art is. He goes into great detail of what it entails and how to accomplish it. He includes the basics like materials, characteristics, examples, movements and history of Installation Art. And concludes with the reason why we find it so intriguing. I agree with everything Zurbrugg says, although I thought he could have said more about why Installation art is different from other practices.

Source: Zurbrugg, Nicholas, Installation Art- essence and existence, What is insallation? An anthology of writings on Australian installation art/ ed by Adam Geczy and Benjamin Genocchio. Sydney: Power Publications, 2001. pp. 25-31.

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