Schemes

-~V4 U ~ .X I .. OI ...... I. V 4 .J I .~ A World Regional Harmony Proect (detail), Charles Luce A- I \ ~' I * . . . I * I> I ~ ~. ~ t t, 1 . ~. SHELLEY RICE Indoor installations have been prevalent on the New York art scene since at least the early 1970s. A small number of artists -Vito Acconci and Alice Aycock are examples-have made and/or solidified their reputations with such works, but for the most part installation artists have received little critical or curatorial support. There are, of course, reasons for this neglect. Installation works are not art objects in the traditional sense, so they cannot be defined, classified or handled in the same way as paintings and sculptures. They are costly to produce, and difficult to exhibit and sell-how many people, after 80 ECM all, are interested in buying a full-scale environment for their living room? They are also difficult to describe, since they defy attempts to analyze them with the critical vocabulary generally used to describe and assess simpler two-dimensional and threedimensional objects. Indoor installations are, in short, mutations-and like all such aberrations, they fit only uneasily into the established structures of the Art Machine. Earthworks and other outdoor installation pieces, which appeared on the contemporary scene at about the same time as indoor installations, are also aberrations E S from art world norms, but by and large these works have had more critical success. Many of these outdoor pieces are extremely sculptural, and they thus fit snugly into the art historical tradition of monumental sculpture. At the same time, these outdoor works are differentiated from most modernist sculptural forms by their scale and by virtue of the fact that they are situated outside of the normal gallery context. The clarity of these similarities and differences has made it easy for critics, curators and historians (if not always dealers) to classify outdoor installation works in a separatebut -equal critical category that is both isolated from and related to the sculptural mainstream. The boundaries are not so clearly drawn around indoor installations, which makes them far more problematic. Most of the artists working in this unconventional genre have chosen to exhibit in conventional gallery spaces; and to complicate matters further, they often mix-and-match other art forms and media within their pieces. Mary Beth Edelson, Terry Berkowitz and Hannah Wilke, for instance, have incorporated sculptural objects and photographs into their installations; Jacki Apple and Colette have combined found objects, texts, photographs and music. Roger Welch has created sculptural settings for his films and Rita Myers has designed mythical landscapes which serve as environments for her videotapes, while Dieter 0 Froese has used video equipment as if it' were a form of sculpture in his pieces. q These cross-references and combinations make it difficult to isolate and categorize these works, and the confusion is exacerbated by the fact that there are no formal or stylistic consistencies relating all installations produced during the past ten years. On the contrary, the visual solutions, themes and media used by indoor installation artists are endlessly diverse. These people are creative individualists whose sensibilities were formed during the upheavals that swept the art world in the late 1960s and early 1970s; many of them began their careers in the alternative spaces, like 112 Greene Street, that sprang up during those years to challenge the rigid strictures of the art establishment. No "ism" can ever be coined that will characterize all of these artists, who are grouped together here only because they all express themselves by arranging tangible and/or intangible elements--sculptural forms, found objects, films, videotapes, slides, written texts, found imagery, audio tapes, music, photographic prints, books, paintings, drawing, etc.-in complex configurations that define a spatial environment . More than anything else, installation works are distinguished by their dependence on and manipulation of space. Traditional paintings and sculptures are self-contained: the viewer responds to them as he/she experiences a set of formal relationships of 500 Fence Stakes, David Nash within the confines of the frame or object. The initial experience of installations, on the contrary, is a spatial one: the overall environment sets the tone for the work, and...