Installation Art in the New Millennium

Over the past decade Installation art has achieved mainstream status within contemporary visual culture. Its ubiquitous presence has given rise to new terms that redefine the art form and impact not just on art, but also on international fashion shows, movie design, and club culture. The phenomenon of Installation was covered for the first time in the critically acclaimed 1994 book Installation Art by the same authors. This new volume surveys how Installation has evolved, embracing often unexpected media, and its far-reaching influence worldwide. The new "immersive" Installation reflects a desire for sensual pleasure, as the viewer is totally enveloped in a hermetic and narcissistic artwork, as illustrated by the American artist Doug Aitken and the Japanese artist Kazuo Katase, among others. New dynamics have developed between the artist and institutions, and installation is more than ever an open-ended experiment that transforms the museum into a cultural laboratory, as seen in the work of Hans Haacke. Installation refuses to accept fixed boundaries, and practitioners, such as the Mexican Jose Davila, are now looking to forge relationships on a global level, collaborating with specialists in other non-art areas. In a rapidly changing world, time and memory become key concerns, and artists such as Christian Boltanksi and Damien Hirst prefer to construct their own spaces of memory. The culmination of these processes has made the audience itself the key site of the installation as witnessed in the works of Vanessa Beecroft, Gary Hill, Mariko Mori, and Bill Viola. This astonishing process returns us to the body, to the spectator, a space that is both sentient and active, the "Empire of the Senses." Introduced by Jonathan Crary, Professor of Art History, Columbia University, the book is completed by a chronology, details on the works included in the book, further reading, and an index. 318 illustrations, 269 in color .