OK I've calmed down a bit from my tantrum - I'm no longer buff, green and mean - I'm Bannered out baby - slack, loose and wobbly. So before my server conks on me again let's see if I can get back to the discussion.

Jerry's article mentioned a term that I haven't heard for quite a while - Extended Field. In the graduate programs this term was kicked around like a hackysack out on a college quad. In the 90's it really took off - not that it wasn't in the galleries before - but installation became the dogma of gallery going experience - painting and sculpture became less independent and more of a larger presentation. Basically EF boils down to a couple of types of installation. One is art/theory related and the other is performance related. They can overlap, but you'll catch the drift as we go on.

First the art/theory related works. These tend to be critiques of art historical precedent. This is pure POMO strategy. It is related to the physical attributes of the work displayed usually developing a theme in the sculpture or painting and then spinning it out into the display spaces. Matthew Ritchie, Jessica Stockholder and Fabian Marcaccio are good examples of this sort of work. Fabian's work is pictured. Here the painting has completely engulfed the room, the canvas has expanded, the paint becomes both picture and material and he reworks the architecture of the exhibition space as the actual ground/support of the piece. It is Rauschenberg on steroids. Basically a clever critique and a precedent following form.

The other kind of installation is related to theatre / performance. This had its origin in the happenings of the 50s and 60s. Or if you want to go further - back to the Surrealists - Artaud and the "Theatre of Cruelty" - "The "cruelty" of this dramatic theory signified not sadism but heightened actor/audience involvement in the dramatic event. The theater of cruelty was theorized by Antonin Artaud in his Le Theatre et son double (The Theatre and Its Double), and also appears in the work of Jerzy Grotowski, Jean Genet, Jean Vilar, and Arthur Adamov, among others." Paul McCarthy, Matthew Barney, Pipolotti Rist and Bruce Nauman involve us in the workings of ritual, shamanism and theater. The remaining installation is basically what's left of the experience. The installation becomes like a crime scene, and we are to retrace meaning through the props or video. Nauman's piece entitled "MAPPING THE STUDIO II with color shift, flip, flop, & flip/flop (Fat Chance John Cage)" is a 360 degree video recreation of his studio at night. Life happens while the lights are out and art is made without anyone actually making it. The screens approximate the size of the studio and the work runs in real time. We witness the whole event while sitting amongst this lens-created world - basically turning the space into a theater piece. The text reads - "The effect of the large images and the sound levels is to create an emotionally charged immersive space - what Janet Kraynak has called ‘mediated spaces in which the viewer is made to perform a range of sensory tasks: moving, viewing, listening and so on. In so doing, processes of perception – visual, physiological, physical – are heightened, and the distinction between seeing with the eyes and experiencing with the body is collapsed’." - hmmm maybe - I could only take a couple of minutes of this stuff. I barely made it all the way through a couple of Barney's movies and the only thing keeping me awake in Cremaster whatever was the guy snoring loudly two rows ahead.

The EF is basically what rules the gallery world these days. You can't go anywhere without someone speaking of an installation - as if they are looking to buy a new speaker system for their car stereo. POMO thought is all about extending fields because it diminishes the idea of a masterwork - by leveling the field to installation all the parts of the show must work to create a whole experience in the gallery. The idea of a masterwork is anathema to POMO sensibility - I'm still not sure why - maybe it has to do with meta-narratives etc. The artist becomes an event planner rather than a painter or sculptor. You read things like "space becomes activated" or " emotionally charged imersive space" and you wonder what the hell was just said to you.

There are a lot of traditional contemporary painters afraid to let their work talk on its own. I can't tell you how many times in the last couple of years I've seen ordinary abstract paintings set on backdrops traced from overhead projectors. Even Peter Halley has opted for wall paper rather than rework the images on his canvas. I often wonder what a Press Release might look like for a show like this - The intensely colored cartoon-like wall paper becomes the meta-ground of the hyper-activated space accomodating the post-structural pictorial critique of sign and system. It's precisely why I try not to read the PR. As a collector you might ask if the wall paper comes with the work. As an artist you might provide it. When the work is finally away from the installation what does it look like? I've always found Matthew Barney's props to remain just that. They are diminished without the installation. The same for McCarthy. Nauman is a bit different. His sculptures retain a kind of force that makes them more than a prop. When working in the EF the surroundings are all important and can act as either a boon or a crutch to the exhibition.

to be continued...