Orwasher+Response+to+The+Body,+the+Image,+and+the+Space-in-Between+Video+Installation+Art

__Orwasher Response to “The Body, the Image, and the Space-in-Between: Video Installation Art__ My first impression of this article was one of relief in that I was happy to read a piece that analyzes and observes new media art, in this case video installations, from a perspective other than that of strictly art studies or art history. Particularly as a business school student who has no formal art training, it was very interesting to read an article from the point of view that is similar to my own. The piece begins by disclaiming, “the answers posed here were based on research and interviews with artists and were conceptualized with the tools of cinema and television theory rather than wit those of the discourse of art history.” A particular aspect of the discussion of installation art that struck me was the sentiment that “installation is a topsy-turvy art that depends for its very existence on museums or like institutions, whereas for commodity arts such as painting, the museum serves as the pinnacle of validation in a longer history of display.” It is this very aspect of installation that constantly draws me to installation art, whether it be video or in other forms. In looking back on the semester and my choices of artists and pieces to analyze have often times been installation artists (as example Jim Lambie’s table on the floor of the Hirshorn). Another aspect of installation are that the article addresses that I find particularly striking in the fact that installation art “implies a kind of art that is ephemeral and never to be utterly severed from the subject, time, and place of its enunciation”. I think this aspect of installation makes the art more complex in that the artist not only must address the actual piece of art, whether it be the canvas or the medium, but also needs to pay close attention to its surrounding environment.