Installation –
It seems to have taken the stage of the artworld. Installation art is the new sculpture and it has swept us off our feet in the past decade and even before with the installations of huge plastic pieces and/or glass like Dale Chuhily demostrated in the 1970’s and 80’s. I recently visited the Phoenix Museum of Art where the was a number of installation pieces that I was quite impressed with. I am particularly interested in Cornelia Parker’s “Mass (Colder Darker Matter) c. 1997. I stared at the piece for a good 5 min, just taking in the size of it and the stillness of the piece. The pieces slowly twisted and turned with the slight air movements in the museum which gave the piece the dynamic of movement and made it even more relaxing to look at. Park formed the piece into a 3D cube of burnt wood suspended by fishing line, making it seem if some burnt box just exploded and the artist caputred the
"Mass" at Phoenix Museum of Art
explosion and suspended it there for all to view. The piece was so serene yet so dramatic with the history behind the wood. A church in Texas had been struck by lightening and burnt down. She retrieve the charred pieces of history from church and made them beautiful and functional again. It really is something to see, bigger then life but somehow the embodiment of quiet stillness.
The SFMOMA has Olafur Eliasson’s Take your time which is a fabulous walk through installation of prism glass that changes colors as you walk through it. The glass is angled as triangles to play tricks on your eyes and the points come in the walkway which nearly interact with you and your perception of the piece. It’s also equally as beautiful to look at from the outside, above, down and on the sides. It is truely a sculputural installation that is
Olafur Eliasson's Installation at SFMOMA
interesting from all points of view and actively invites the visitor into it for a unique experience of art and color.
Installation provides a diffent experience then the traditional sculpture or painting. It can take both mediums and use their best qualities to create an experience like nothing else. The Installation genre can use an unlimited number of materials to wow their viewers and I encourage art lovers and artists to fully explore this world of Installation for it is like no other, I promise.
Love Art,
Emily
