The Power of Installation

artwork by Amy Landesberg

Few artforms have as much impact on an open space as installation. Unlike sculpture, installation has both advantages and disadvantages such as being impermanent and fragile but also integrating with a room, such as a gallery, in a way straight sculpture cannot. Although temporary, installations can be documented through photography and film and their limited time in form represents a sense of urgency to experience them in real-time and savor the moment of the experience, rather than dwell on their long term impact. There are two types of installations, one which remains temporary and installed into a space, which would cover most installations, and the other would be ones which are public projects and permanently installed into an interior, exterior, or has a structure similar to a sculpture to not become disassembled. There are few artforms which are as conceptual as installation; the medium by its very structure represents ideas through relationships of interactions of objects and representations rather than conveying design principles or ornamental traits.

artwork by Amy Landesberg

There are several artists who exemplify the power of installation which would be Amy Landesberg, Juliet Vles, Pauline Galiana, and Luca Granato. Amy Landesberg installs permanent public installations which deal with expressions such as the movement of collective commuting and the manipulation of light. Juliet Vles assembles her installations like sculptures and incorporates found objects such as pieces of wood which are painted and sculpted to reflect holistic unfamiliar forms, her works blur the line between assemblage and installation. Pauline Galiana creates installations such as recreating classical portraits on the ends of tree branches with graphite drawings which she assembles onto a wall space in spatial intervals. Luca Granato expresses installations of torn and burned fabric which symbolically represent flags of nationalism and migration.

artwork by Juliet Vles

Most commercial galleries will not touch installations because of their temporary nature and anti-commercial qualities of impermanence and lack of fixed structure. You are more likely to see genuine installations in a contemporary art museum or in top tier art centers such as the Chelsea galleries in New York. And you will rarely find an installation at an art fair which tends to favor more two-dimensional artforms such as painting. The anti-institutional nature of installation represents resistance against an artform which clearly represents conceptual approaches over direct observation or non-objective abstraction. Although installation can incorporate those traits as well, most installations are highly conceptual and address pressing social, technological, cultural, and institutional issues. 

artwork by Juliet Vles

Like performance art, photography, and video art - installation could be generally described as an outlier in the art world usually receptive to a particular audience. Many of the most exciting installations incorporate integrative techniques of performance, photography, and video and reflect a dynamism beyond singular connotations. An expensive art form, many installations require high production values of recreating and even manufacturing objects to have a different conceptual approach divergent from their original intentions. There are artists who use improvisational objects and methods to express economical applications of installation, but most well-known installation artists engage with polished presentations in order to compete with the noise of the competition. 

artwork by Pauline Galiana

The future of installation will be guided towards increasingly conceptual approaches and addressing more pressing issues of our times. In a world which has become increasingly volatile in both the financial markets and social stability along with pro and anti-institutional sentiments across the globe, artforms like installation will come in to fill the void. The artform of installation, being young and conceptual, represents an increasing appetite towards direct and indirect interpretations of how our world is changing for better or worse. Technology does not need to take a direct role in installation, but the impacts of technological innovations such as artificial intelligence upon society could be interpreted through humanistic analogue processes which reflect both the destructive and enlightening aspects progress has on our collective psyche.

artwork by Luca Granato