The World Is Made of Play: Art, Children, and Society

Participatory art directly engages the audience in the creative process, so that they become participants in the event. The artist is seen as a collaborator and co-producer of the situation with the audience, and such situations can often have an unclear beginning or end. Its origins lie in the Futurist and Dada performances of the early twentieth century, which were designed to provoke, scandalise and agitate the public. In the late 1950s Allan Kaprow devised performances called happenings. The name first appeared in the title of his 1959 work 18 Happenings in 6 Parts, staged at the Reuben Gallery in New York; happenings typically took place in an environment or installation made inside the gallery and included an element of spectator participation. Among contemporary artists, Monster Chetwynd relies entirely on willing participants to create her performances.

Look near the work for a sign or instruction showing how to take part, whether by touching, entering, or joining, and watch how other visitors' movements become part of it.

• Installation Art インスタレーション→Happenings took place in an environment or installation made inside the gallery.

Installations are often made for one particular site, and visitors move through them, so where you stand is part of the looking. Materials range from everyday objects and natural materials to video and sound, and a work may be permanent or taken down when the exhibition closes. As the name of an art form, “installation” is first recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary in 1969; in 1958 Allan Kaprow called the indoor spaces he transformed “Environments.” The events the Gutai Art Association staged in Japan from 1954 are counted among early installation art, and they influenced Kaprow. Some artists step inside their own installations: Aki Sasamoto builds spaces from string, tubes, household things and sound, then talks and moves within them, so that the work becomes an event that changes over time.

Look from the entrance, from the middle and from a corner. Notice how the light, the sound, and the path you take change the work.

• Installation Art 설치 미술→Same topic in Seoul
• Installation art 裝置藝術→Same topic in Taipei