From Idea To Concept, Environment, Performance And Installation

POSTMODERNISM IN ART: AN

INTRODUCTION

from object to concept: environment, performance and installation

Walter De Maria Lightning Field (1971) Western New Mexico

Richard Long (1967) A Line Made by Walking England.

Robert Smithson

Nonsite, Franklin, New Jersey

Robert Smithson“One thing films have is the power to take perception elsewhere” (Smithson [1971] 1979, p.105)

Spiral Jetty (1970)Actual work made in the Great Salt Lake in Utah.

Robert Smithson“Like the nonsite, the Jetty is not a discrete work, but one link in a chain of signifiers which summon and refer to one another in a dizzying spiral. For where else does the Jetty exist except in the film which Smithson made, the narrative he published, the photographs which accompany that narrative, and the various maps, diagrams, drawings, etc., he made about it?” (Owens [1979] 1994, p.47)

Ana MendietaAna Mendieta, untitled from the Silhueta Series. photographs of performance-based earthworks, Mexico (1973-1980)

Glass on body (1972)

Ana Mendieta

Rape Scene (1973)

Hannah Wilke (1977)

Judy Chicago (1971)

Hannah Wilke (1978-81) Potrait of the Artist with Her Mother, Selma Butter

Hannah Wilke (1992) Intra Venus [detail]

Laurie Anderson

Mach 20 (1983), from United States

Clip from “O Superman” ([1981]1982)

Installation

Mark Rosenthal suggested that Installation art might be best understood when broken up as follows:

Enchantments

Impersonations

filled-space

Interventions

Rapprochements

Site-specific

EnchantmentRight: Lucas Samaras (1966) Mirror Room. Below: Ilya Kabakov The Man who Flew in to Space (1985)

Impersonations

Jannis Kounellis (1969) Untitled

Interventions

Vito Acconci (1972) in Sonnabend Gallery, New york

Rapproachments

Christo and Jeanne-Claude

Bruce Nauman (1970-1) Green Light Corridor

References

Owens, C ([1979] 1994) Earthwords, in Owens, C Beyond Recognition: Representation, Power and Culture. London, University of California Press. Pp. 40-51

Smithson ([1971] 1979) A Cinematic Atopia, in Holt, N (ed.) The writings of Robert Smithson. New York, New York University Press.

Appendix: Robert Smithson Site1. Open Limits

2. A series of points

3. Outer Coordinates

4. Subtraction

5. Indeterminate Certainty

6. Scattered Information

7. Reflection

8. Edge

9. Some Place (physical)

10. Many

Non-Site1. Closed Limits

2. An Array of Matter

3. Inner Coordinates

4. Addition

5. Determinate Uncertainty

6. Contained Information

7. Mirror

8. Center

9. No Place (abstract)

10. One