From margin to center

"This is the first book-length study of installation art. Julie Reiss concentrates on some of the central figures in its emergence, including artists, critics, and curators. Her primary focus is installations created in New York City - which has a particularly rich history of Installation art - beginning in the late 1950s. She takes us from Allan Kaprow's 1950s environments to examples from minimalism, performance art, and process art to establish installation art's autonomy as well as its relationship to other movements.". "Recent years have seen a surge of interest in the effects of exhibition space, curatorial practice, and institutional contest on the spectator. The history of installation art - of all art forms, one of the most defiant of formalist tenets - sheds considerable light on the issues raised by this shift of critical focus from isolated art works to art experienced in a particular context."--BOOK JACKET.