Thursday, April 28, 2011

Installation Art

Sculpture and painting have the effect of teaching us manners and abolishing hurry.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson


The American Heritage definition of installation art is "art that is created for a specific site, often incorporating materials or physical features of the site."

Water Towers at Salisbury Cathedral
by Bruce Munro
Photo by Haydn

Winged Trees
by Shigeko Hirakawa

The Mending Project
by Beili Liu
The installation consists of hundreds of Chinese scissors suspended from the ceiling, pointing downwards. The hovering, massive cloud of scissors alludes to distant fear, looming violence and worrisome uncertainty. The performer, who sits beneath the countless sharp blades of the scissors, while she does the simple task of mending. As visitors enter the space, they are asked to cut off a piece of the white cloth hung near the entrance, and offer the cut section to the performer. She then continuously sews the cut pieces onto the previous ones.

Current
by Beili Liu
10 glass globes filled with a mixture of salt, water, and carbon powder. Salt crystal grows along the globe surface while water evaporates. Salt is white, carbon is black, water is clear, water dissolves salt, carbon traces rupture and drift. The materials perform a subtle and gradual change through time.

SLEM'S Oerol (Wind Nomads)


And two that are paintings about installation art:
Moonlight installation (oil on canvas)
by Kristoffer Zetterstrand

Thawing (oil and vinyl on canvas)
by Kristoffer Zetterstrand

Close-up of Thawing

* More installation art: WaterFire, Silent Evolution, and works by Christopher Janney.

*An article about Bruce Munro's Water-Towers at Salisbury Cathedral

1 comment:

April Halprin Wayland said...

Hi, Tabatha! I LOVED the Winged Trees--so beautiful. Thanks for giving us amazing images to think about. And thanks for hosting Poetry Friday!
Over at TeachingAuthors we're talking about Things I Wish I'd Known...and also the End of Poetry Month 2011, along with an original poem about what I've learned in writing a poem a day for more than a year. It's about being present and ready to catch the poem when it appears. (sometimes...!)