ON PICTORIAL REPRESENTATION & INSTALLATION ART

By Dinorah Pérez-Rementería

Pictures as well as other kinds of representations have been analyzed by a great number of philosophers, who have developed theoretical and philosophical frameworks that help us differentiate not only systems of representation but also properties within one particular system. Perceptual, structural, ontological accounts that sometimes complete, complement or contradict each other invite us (writers, artists) to approach our disciplines from a more analytical perspective.

This essay will show how some of the concepts used in the process of constructing a methodological framework for studying pictorial representation can be effectively applied to other kinds of representation within the visual arts: installation works. We will start by presenting similarities and differences between the two systems (installations and pictures), illustrating with samples of real artworks. Next, we will discuss the resemblance theory, realms of representation, and art appreciation, concepts that are very much interconnected and sometimes overlap. We will also dedicate a special attention to the meaning and treatment of the “surface” and the “space,” their physical and symbolic properties as conditions for these systems of representation to be conceptually satisfied.

The perceptual/experiential account will be emphasized. In this respect, we will explore the viewer’s recognition of the representational content. Concepts such as illusionism and imagination will be seen as complementary entities and will be addressed together. In addition, we will leave some room for plenty of conjectures and theoretical assumptions that may assist us in understanding how theories situated within pictorial frameworks can be successfully transferred into another representational system. Here, we will name the “pictorial” to all conditions that refer us to pictures and paintings, and we will call the “installative” to occurrences that connect us with installation art.

  

Pictorial and Installative Conditions

What are the main conditions that situate a representational system within pictorial and/or installative frameworks? Both pictorial and installative works constitute schemes of representation, with visual and sensorial properties. Dominic Lopes suggests we should read Poussin’s description of pictures as “imitations in line and color,” as holding the idea that lines and colors make up a “picture’s surface,” resembling visible features of the depicted scene (Lopes 2006). Pictures, says Lopes, are well-suited to storing and conveying information, and they represent objects only in so far as they represent them as having some visual properties (Lopes 1996).

While installation art may convey some object-related information as well, such information does not have to be shown in an explicit way, which is due, more often than not, to the elusive nature of the installative work. Visual properties can be detected in installations but are not necessary for a representational system to be considered an installative one. As Mark Rosenthal has pointed out, an installation may be an assemblage of objects attached or not, but it also can consist of only a spatial experience (2003). Space and time are probably the most important conditions in an installation. Paintings freeze time whereas installation uses the time and space of the viewer (Rosenthal 2003).

For Kulvicki, structural transparency is one of the features that distinguish pictures from other kinds of representations (2006). We must understand transparency in terms of a special relation that representations have to one another (Kulvicki 2006).  In other words, “given a representation,” says Kulvicki, “the result of representing it is another representation that is just like the original representation. Representations of representations are about what the original representations are about” (Kulvicki 2006).

Can we think of installations as transparent systems too? Let us illustrate with The Ring, a mischievous artwork of the Argentinean artist Leandro Erlich. The Ring represents one half of a boxing platform painted in blue and red, facing a mirror. At first sight, we could not even say there is a mirror there, for the reflection carefully completes the figure. The presence of a mirror allows for transparency in an installation as it reflects, without providing imprecise interpretations of, an object. So we can argue that installative works are transparent in so far as there is a mirror placed in a certain position that guarantees the exact reflection of the object installed.

  

                                                  

Leandro Erlich: The Ring, 2006

                                
                                           

An account of depiction and installation can be found in the way the content is presented and how we interpret it. Haugeland, for example, distinguishes pictures from other representations in terms of their bare bones content (Haugeland in Kulvicki 2006). Among the six conditions laid out by Roberts Hopkins in reference to the pictorial system, at least three of them may be used to compare and contrast the content of depiction with the content of an art installation. Hopkins himself recognizes that the six features are also applicable to three dimensional models (Hopkins 2006). Hopkins affirms that a system is pictorial when there is a minimum of pictorial content, (what can be depicted can be seen), and competence with depiction of the appearance of the object suffices for the ability to interpret its depiction (1998).

Yoko Ono: Touch me iii, 2008

What if we were to utilize these criteria in the realm of the installative? Would they prove true? Let us try each proposal separately. First, in all installations, there has to be a minimum of “installative” content. In Touch me of Yoko Ono that presents the segmented body of a doll on a black table, the content of the work can be perceived without effort. But, sometimes content in an installation work is not as easily discernible as the content of a picture is, and it does not have to be. For example, The Light Inside by James Turrell created for connecting two individual buildings of the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas, is an environmental installation that recreates light in space, and the content is presented in an indefinable way.

James Turrell: The Light Inside, 1999

Secondly, what can be “installed” not always can be seen. Installations may contain representations of impossible objects or abstract entities, so we would be forced to consider those representations as physical objects themselves if we were to talk about their visual properties. (We already agreed that visual properties can be identified within but are not required to fulfill the concept of an installation, since other sensorial properties can be appreciated as well). With regard to the third suggestion, we may say that installations that have physical, real objects whose appearances are familiar to the viewer make themselves more accessible to be interpreted.

The Resemblance View

Resemblance is one of the basic notions that explain how we perceive things. We may say, for instance, that we are able to recognize certain objects because they resemble others with which we had contact before. An object can resemble another object. In art, we experience the represented object as being like the real object. Some theorists have said that we have to be able to say what counts as a relevant resemblance and how to weight this resemblance against what appear to be relevant differences between the artwork (pictures, etc.) and the paradigm case (Warburton 2003).

Let us see how these ideas justify our knowing of pictures, and how they would apply to our understanding of installative works. Pictorial similarity is placed by Peacocke in the spectator’s visual field (Peacocke in Lopes 1996). According to Dominic Lopes, resemblance theory explains the idea that the viewer understands “what pictures represent by recognizing their similarity to their subject” (1996). In other words, the representational capacity of a picture depends on its ability to generate a field of communication with the viewer in which he/she is allowed to identify what has been depicted by association. A resemblance theory of installation art would also explain how a similar communication field is created between the viewer and the work so that the latter can offer enough of the properties of the subject as to allow the viewer to understand it. Another version of the resemblance theory that will not be analyzed here in detail for its limited view is that made by Tolstoy –and cited by Lopes- which says that pictures represent because they replicate in the viewers the same experiences as their makers enjoyed (Lopes 1996).

How does the resemblance view account for the relationship between subject and picture in addition to explaining that of subject and installation art? “If pictures resemble their subjects, then knowing what an object looks like and how pictures resemble things contributes to our knowledge of what a picture of the object will look like,” says Lopes (1996). Even if all installation works do not represent tangible things, we can apply Lopes’s idea to installative works in a restrictive sense, that is to an installation that resembles a particular subject. We may say that if an installation resembles a subject, then knowing what the object looks like and how an installation may resemble it contributes to our understanding of what that object installed will look like. An interesting case is that of Marulho of Brazilian artist Cildo Meireles that resembles a bridge over an ocean made of hundreds of books with images of blue and green waves. Here, thanks to the hybrid nature of the installation –notice there is a considerable amount of pictorial content involved- we could think of a resemblance account of installation art similar to Lopes’s idea.

Cildo Meireles: Marulho, 1991-2001

 

However, the resemblance view has been also criticized by some philosophers. Hopkins, for example, brings up two problems. We will mention that which really interests us, with regard to the evident differences between resembled objects and the real ones. The represented objects and their “authentic” equivalents do not have the same shape, color, or texture. Moreover, the real objects can move by themselves or be moved while the depicted objects are frozen within a particular space.

Unless we were dealing with pictorial objects or abstract entities within an installation, a resemblance account of installative works should not generate such inconsistencies. First of all, the objects assembled in an installation are expected to have texture and to be both three dimensional and able to move. They are not thought as having a frozen nature as the pictorial objects are, except perhaps for the site-specific installation that has neither abstract patterns nor pictorial objects. Spiral Jetty by Robert Smithson, for instance, was intended not to move but to stay attached to the ground.

Robert Smithson: Spiral Jetty, 1970 

Hopkins proposes to approach the resemblance theory from another perspective, saying that pictures do not resemble their objects but that they can be experienced as resembling them. We would not have trouble formulating a similar account of installation art, for objects within an installation reach an extra-ordinary dimension, so even if they were to be contemplated as having the same properties as real objects, they can be experienced as resembling, instead of being them.  For Hopkins, the experience of resemblance must involve resemblance to something of a certain outline shape that has to be fairly determinate (1998).

The Experiential Account: Illusionism and Imagination

The viewer’s experience has to do with knowledge about the kinds of objects with which he has to deal. A viewer knows by intuition what objects require special attention and how he/she should experience them. Like art that has endured a severe transformation over the years, the viewer’s experience has been transformed as well. We could not expect that viewers of the XXI Century approach art like people did in the 50s or in the XIX Century.

Perceptual or imaginative experiences are permeable to background knowledge (Lamarque 2007). Context and knowledge make us aware of when we should experience the object as a common object or as art.  In this respect, Kendall Walton studies how the perception of a work’s qualities varies in response to the category to which it is thought to belong (Walton in Lamarque 2007). An experiential account of any representational system must consider what sorts of significance the objects reach within the mind of the spectators. What matters for the identity of an experience is not what the experience is of in the sense of what causes it but what it is thought to be of (Lamarque 2007). An experiential account of depiction reflects how the viewer is able to perceive the transformation occurred in a two-dimensional surface showing the appearance of three-dimensional objects, their structural patterns and visual properties. On the other hand, the experiential account of installation works should be concerned with how viewers identify with the illusion of, or simply perceive the transformation of three dimensional spaces through their imagination.

Illusionism is one of the main concepts associated with art. One of the most important philosophers who have theorized about illusionism is Gombrich. He affirms that the relationship between viewer and image is not a passive one and that it involves the psychological phenomenon of projecting interpretations into the visual stimuli (Gombrich in Nanyoung 2004). Having an illusion in art is a matter of choice that involves imagination and consciousness at the same time, and it depends on the viewer’s level of commitment to the art work. Collingwood is another researcher who supports the idea that appreciating art relates to our imagination (Collingwood in Warburton 2004). For Gombrich, only the eye (not the mind) can be deceived (Gombrich in Lopes 1996). Hopkins sees in illusionism a powerful tool to approach depiction, but he calls our attention to the fact that looking at a picture is not like looking at the picture’s object itself. In this sense, illusion can be expressed at different stages, according to the kind of spectator having the experience.

The viewer can experience different degrees of illusion when seeing an installation work. Filled-spaces and site-specific installations offer us an opportunity to have a deeper sense of illusion than a marked two-dimensional surface. The very (restricted) nature of depiction prevents us from the possibility of experiencing a more profound connection with pictorial pieces. In reference to the nature of photographs, Roland Barthes has stated that from object to image there is a transformation that does not imply the need for setting up a code, as photos manage to display those properties of the object that are needed to be considered within the pictorial domains (Barthes 1977). While it is true that they show what they represent (Hopkins 2006), photos and paintings generally convey the sense of something that has happened in the past.

In contrast, installation art conveys a sense of immediacy, transforming the space and time in which the viewer inhabits. Both of these elements (time and space) allow for a closer communication with spectators. The viewer is invited to perceive his own space as having new (hybrid) properties, for the integrity of an individual work is abandoned in favor of a multiplicity of objects, images and experiences (Rosenthal 2003). Filled-spaces installations, for instance, may recreate environments enhancing the viewer’s perceptual experience. Rosenthal calls this kind of installations, “enchanted spaces”. An experiential account of installation art should study how the nature of installative works makes the viewer understand (and interact with) the space of representation.

Realms of Representation: The Surface and the Installation Space

The space in which the objects appear helps define the system of representation. Depiction is generally a two-dimensional system although it represents three dimensional objects, and pictures occur on a flat surface. Among those who have discussed the role of the surface are Greenberg and Wollheim (Matravers 2007). According to Matravers, Wollheim identified Greenberg’s mistake of confusing the surface of a painting with the surface of a physical thing. But, a picture is actually a physical thing, and Greenberg was interested in the surface flatness, which made the medium “more secure” (Greenberg in Currie 2007).

Theorists say that one can actually see a three dimensional image through the painted surface. How do the two dimensional properties of the surface correspond to the three dimensional properties of the depicted scene? Lopes has stated that a flat surface allows for a recognition of a three dimensional object only when the capacity to recognize that object has been extended so as to enable recognizing the object when it appears two-dimensionally (2006). So, some visual properties are needed for recognizing the three dimensional within the two dimensional. The spectator’s own ability to recognize things plays also a significant role. In this regard, Lopes highlights that the features we see a picture surface as having may depend on what we see in the picture (2006).

In pictorial representation the flat surface is transformed. As Hopkins has pointed out, the surface experiences a process of transformation before our eyes so that we can see all marks constructing a figure. To describe the result of this transformation, Hopkins uses the term “patterned surface” producing an experience, and then he argues that unless a surface has been altered within a framework of people’s actions, it cannot depict (1998). Marks on the surface become the objects in it; objects that need to be recognized by the viewer, in agreement with the visual properties provided.

Installations take place in three dimensional spaces. Artists transform and intervene in areas that do not present themselves as the blank canvas. These areas might have suffered previous processes of transformation, and yet they allow for the possibility of new changes without affecting the purity of their very own nature, which is in fact variable and hybrid. If we were to consider a concept like “surface” in installation art, we would mention, for example, the ground surface or a wall surface. Objects are installed on them, and their properties accommodate to certain spatial conditions. In return, the space contributes to enhancing and even particularizing the physical properties of the represented objects. A spatial account of installation art should explain how the objects are transformed and/or they themselves alter the settings in which they appear.

Recognition & Art Appreciation

Can we recognize items that change in space? Recognition is dynamic when features and objects are recognized under different aspects (Lopes 1996). A recognition theory focuses on how the viewer develops the ability to collect information from an object in order to recognize it even if presented under unusual conditions. Lopes defines two levels of recognition: the content recognition and the subject recognition. The first consists “in recognizing a design as the features making up an aspect of its subject,” and the latter conveys the idea of recognizing contents as of their subjects (Lopes 1996).

How can we see objects interacting with their spatial settings? Do we need background knowledge that helps us appreciate the content of a picture or an installative work in an easier way? According to Warburton, the only relevant knowledge the viewer needs to have is a sense of form and color and of three-dimensional space (2003). A theorist like Clive Bell would find irrelevant the issue of the context in understanding works of art (Bell in Warburton 2003). Other thinkers like Lopes say that no picture is seen with an innocent eye, because we come to pictures primed with beliefs, expectations, and attitudes (1996). A similar idea is supported by Gordon Graham who affirms that works of art can not be considered in isolation since they have a history and a context the spectator should be familiar with when approaching them (2006). Based on Shier’s view, what seems characteristic of pictorial representation is the way we interpret it, and what is distinctive about pictorial interpretation is the resources needed to do it (Shier in Hopkins 1998). By studying and deepening their interpretational skills, viewers can accumulate such resources over the years.

Do we access the content of an object within three-dimensional spaces more easily than in two-dimensional surfaces? Intuitively, one may say that viewers reach the content of the work more easily when looking at art installations since they show objects in the realm of the three dimensional. However, sometimes the assemblage of objects is delivered in an accentuated abstract mood that makes it difficult for the viewers to decipher what the installation is about. It is important to notice that a theory of depiction does leave some room for misrepresentation and abstraction, but it always emphasizes a minimum amount of pictorial content. Viewers understand what pictures represent when they are able to recognize pictures’ subjects (Lopes 1996). Although, as Hopkins says, very often one knows something is depicted but it takes a minute to identify what it is (1998). Another idea referring to the issue of recognition is offered by Kulvicki, “what makes a painting interesting is not its content, per se, but the way in which the painting manages to have that content” (2006). A similar event happens when viewers have to face contents or subjects that are not necessarily evident in an installative work. If anything, as Carolyn Wilde suggests, installations offer the viewer the possibility to grasp categories like “the abstract” or “the misrepresented” under a new sense of material reality (Wilde 2007).

How do we understand installations? Does the concept behind the artwork affect our appreciation of it? Some theorists affirm that “artworks never speak for themselves, but are always accessible only through the mediation of a narrative” (Davies 2007). That “narrative” in painting could be understood as what Lopes calls the “aspectual information” that allows for recognition. “A picture portrays an object or scene,” says Lopes, “if it embodies aspectual information from it that allows the viewer to recognize it” (1996). Narratives facilitate the spectator’s interaction with the artwork. Of course, pictorial representation allocates very limited interaction with the viewer, for the object represented is placed within a different time and space. Regarding installation art, Rosenthal has pointed out that no frame separates this art from its viewing context, and so the work and the space meld together into something that reminds us of life occurrences (2003). These occurrences may even involve the viewer’s action, which sometimes becomes an indispensable condition for the consummation of the art piece. As Davies affirms, the appreciation of an artwork is a matter of finding interesting things to do with the products of artistic activity by means of recontextualizing them so that they connect with the receiver’s concerns (2007). The installative object occupies the viewer’s time and space, allowing people to have a more active interaction with it and consequently, stronger sensorial experiences.

As we have seen, many theoretical concepts that are commonly used in studying pictorial systems can be also considered when approaching installation art. Similarities and differences between these two schemes go far beyond the agreement that they both are significant forms, as affirmed by Warburton, or the thought that painters transform the surface while installation artists transform the space, as pointed out by Rosenthal. There is much more to say about them in philosophical and conceptual terms. I have emphasized perceptual/experiential accounts in this paper, for it is my belief that the viewer as producer of ideas plays a significant role in the making of art occurrences.

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