Framed Spaces

Photography and Memory in Contemporary Installation Art

Monica E. McTighe

Publication Year: 2012

While earlier theorists held up "experience" as the defining character of installation art, few people have had the opportunity to walk through celebrated installation pieces from the past. Instead, installation art of the past is known through archival photographs that limit, define, and frame the experience of the viewer. McTighe argues that the rise of photographic-based theories of perception and experience, coupled with the inherent closeness of installation art to the field of photography, had a profound impact on the very nature of installation art, leading to a flood of photography- and film-based installations. With its close readings of specific works, Framed Spaces will appeal to art historians and theorists across a broad spectrum of the visual arts.

Published by: Dartmouth College Press

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Title Page, Copyright

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pp. v-vi

Acknowledgments

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pp. vii-

Th is project could not have been completed without the help and support of many people. First, a great debt of gratitude is owed Howard Singerman, my mentor and advisor, whose persistent and generous support of my work has helped me in countless ways. In addition, I am grateful to the professors in...

Introduction

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pp. 1-22

Across the dark space, two transparent silk chambers float side by side above oily cement floors in the recently vacated spinning mill. Through the silk panels of each chamber, the observer can see the silhouettes of two long tables. On each table, video projectors, mounted on a turning mechanism, cast...

1. Expanding the Frame: Installation Art in the 1970s

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pp. 23-71

In the late 1960s, major art institutions in the United States had only recently and with a great deal of trepidation brought the new practices of installation and site-specific art within their walls. Simultaneously, there was a glut of artists who wanted places to exhibit and who, as Alanna Heiss asserts, were...

2. The Politics of Representation: Archive and Memory in the Work of Ren�e Green

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pp. 72-115

Fragments and ephemera from the past are gathered in an installation. Small pieces of crumbly concrete are arranged under a glass vitrine that is set on a simple white table along with a map and some paperback books. Music of the 1970s plays on a boom box, and black-and-white photographs of 1970s...

3. The Poetics of Experience: Ann Hamilton's Installations and Photographs

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pp. 116-163

The building sits at the edge of a harbor presided over by submarines and destroyers whose flags wave in the breeze. Th e only feature that distinguishes this building from the dusty warehouses around it is the Chelsea-style frosted glass door. Pushing open the door, I feel first the relative coolness and...

4. Camera Obscura: Memory in Film and Video Installations in the 2000s

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pp. 164-200

The installations in this chapter address the sensuous aspects of outmoded analog media and raise questions about how these forms of technology have shaped experience and now shape memory. These installations are archival in the sense that they interrogate the representation of history and memory...

Conclusion: Installation Art and Memory

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pp. 201-207

As Oliver Wendell Holmes noted in the nineteenth century, photographic archives preserve works but also make them mobile and available. Archives even present the possibility that the objects themselves could disappear and be replaced by their photographic replicas. In this quotation, however, Holmes...

E-ISBN-13: 9781611682519
E-ISBN-10: 1611682517
Print-ISBN-13: 9781611682052

Page Count: 248
Publication Year: 2012

Series Title: Interfaces: Studies in Visual Culture