Now that artists are straying from displaying their works in museums, “showing their reluctance to participate in arguments formulated by and for museum professionals,” (78) it potentially makes it much more difficult for a large quantity of people to view their work. A museum is easily accessible to the public. Unless artists plan on putting their installations in public locations like parks, or cities like Billboard Sydney (83) and Wrapped Reichstag (91), they will have a smaller audience and less feedback. Also, because of their obscure locations (such as Gazebo on page 86), they may reach more attention through photographs, which are arguably “major means of viewing installation art (79).” However as Ilya Kabakov believes, installation is about the viewer’s experience. One has to actually be there to fully be absorbed and moved by a piece of art. Walter Benjamin and Andre Malraux wrote about how drastically a photo can change one’s perception. If an installation needs to be outside of a museum because it is crucial to the work, than it indeed should be out of a museum, but if the intent is to reach a great audience, a museum is probably the best bet. As installation art becomes more popular, will more museums adapt to these needs (more so than they already have)?

Most of the installations described in the reading held a definite purpose and message they were trying to get across (sometimes subliminal). I understand how Jansen’s work Blue Red and Yellow allowed the viewer to become lost in the fog and light, but what was Janssen trying to say in the project? Does installation art have to convey an idea or argue a point or can it just exist for the purpose of getting a reaction from the viewer?