Essay on installations

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Would you kindly check my essay on installation art?

Modern art forms are not easy for ordinary people to appreciate and distinguish from one another. Installation art, for instance, has been puzzling spectators since it first appeared in museums in the 20th century.

Even dictionaries fail to give a comprehensive definition of this form of modern art. The Thames and Hudson Dictionary of Art and Artist makes a fairly good stab at defining installations as a form of art, but it ignores the fact that installations can be bought and relocated to other places and used in different contexts. Neither does it mention the active role of the audience to grasp the full impact of the artwork.

Since Marcel Duchamp displayed a toilet in a New York gallery in 1917, many realized that they can as well break free from conventional principles of art. The vertical concept of making art, like a painting on a wall, started to give way to a horizontal perspective of art, such as installations. Henceforth, artists started to explore the limits of their imagination, and installations quickly became widespread in modern art.

However, as the avant-garde installations by the modernists were abstract and bound up with philosophical concepts, they became irritating to the ordinary audience who did not have the necessary education in art or literature to comprehend the artistic work, and it became a matter of the emperor’s new clothes on their part. Nevertheless, it was not that much bad because the viewers were forced to think about what they observed and have their own interpretations, as if they were part of the art.

Double Bind is a spectacular example of installation by Juan Munoz. With its mezzanine floors, elevators, gray men, and the magnificent combination of real and trompe l’oeil holes, Double Bind invites the audience to have a tour throughout the artwork and contemplate the concept of “double bind” in a new world!