Installation Art

Installations are often made for a particular site, and visitors move within them, so where your body stands is part of the looking. The materials can be everyday objects, fabric, video, or sound, and a work may be taken down after the exhibition and never shown again. The term first appears in writing in 1969; earlier, in 1958, Allan Kaprow called the indoor spaces he transformed “Environments.” Do Ho Suh's Seoul Home (1999) is a life-size replica of his childhood home in Korea in polyester fabric and silk on thin metal rods; it folds up for transport, and each time it moves to a new city, that city's name is added to the title.

Look from several places, outside, inside, and from a distance, and notice how the light, the sound, and your path change.

Once you are inside the work, what changes with where you stand?