The term installation art describes a diverse array of provocative artworks that bring viewers inside an artist's creation rather than allowing them to stand passively before a static image. Artists' installations feature intense sensory experiences that go beyond the visual and incorporate a vast range of materials and media from household objects to mist to chain saws to naked people to state-of-the-art computer imaging and sound technologies. As de Oliveira and his contributors explain in this exciting international survey, an ever-increasing number of contemporary artists are creating environments that resemble everything from a living room to a library, theater, or hospital in order to explore the nature of time and memory, the relationship between body and mind, ecological concerns, the distinction between private and public space, and the implications of the digital explosion. As documented in this worthy volume's 268 colorplates and definitive commentary, the resulting installations vary from stunning to silly, frightening to pleasurable, futuristic to funky, but all are mind expanding and all extend art's capacity for reflecting and influencing our lives. Donna Seaman

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"As documented in this worthy volume's 268 color plates and definitive commentary...installations vary from stunning to silly, frightening to pleasurable, futuristic to funky, but all are mind expanding and all extend art's capacity for reflecting and influencing our lives."

[A] worthy volume....definitive commentary. -- Booklist --This text refers to the Paperback edition.