intro / escape
To me, the term "installation art" is really quite vague. It seems that installation art can be just about anything - which serves as the great and the awful thing about it. You are given so much freedom to express yourself and your ideas in this medium, but it also leaves you with a never-ending world of possibility that is a little hard to swallow (who likes to makes decisions anyway?). In reading the chaper on Escape, I was forced to think about installation art from that perspective: that it is a means of escapism and imagination, where we can be catapulted into a new and exciting world. In the real world, walking, lying down, and dancing would be rather mundane activities, but in installation art (Ugo Rondinone's "It's late and the wind carries a faint sound as it moves..."), these things become extraordinary, they become Art. ................................................................................................................................................................ I think that the fantastic thing about this art form is that it really does demystify art in so many ways. I think that a lot of people are really sick and tired of the general snobbery and elitism of the art world (I know I am). Istallation art - it seems to me - opens up doors and invites everyone in, saying "Hey! Anything can be art. It's really about the intent and the idea behind it, rather than the final product." This in turn can change people's view of not only Art, but Life. With art installations like Lee Bul's "Gravity Greater Than Velocity II," which is simply an artifical, individual karaoke room in a gallery, it forces someone to ask questions like: "Hmm. if this is art, then is me going to sing karaoke on a Friday night with my friends art then, too?" I think it's important to examine life as a whole, and to try to integrate the creative, thoughtful explorations of the ever-intimidating Art World into everyday life! Sort of like, your life can - and should be - your Masterpiece. ..................................................................................................................................................................... Questions for seminar: How is it legal to just "take up" residency in a psychiatric hospital (I'm assuming it's a normally functioning one)? (p 65) It seems to me like any space can be defined (at least abstractly) as relational, historical, and concerned with identity so... how can something truly be a "non-place?"
