The performative turn at Inhotim: installation art and Baudelairean modernity

Résumé

This article explores the participatory turn in installation art as part of a trajectory from Baudelairean modernity to twentyfirst-century postmodernity, as represented at Inhotim, the outdoor contemporary art museum and botanical gardens in Brumadinho, MG. In his 1862 essay “The Painter of Modern Life,” Charles Baudelaire defined modernity as fleeting, transitory and fragmentary. Baudelairean modernity initiated a breakdown of boundaries between art and life and between high art aesthetics and popular culture, which continues in the work of installation artists. In the sites of installation art, the spectator is compelled to extend – rather than complete – the work of art in his/her own time, prior experiential encounters and transformative afterthoughts. The shift from the isolated work of art to the experiential one not only complicates how and where works of art are viewed, but also radicalizes the materials that constitute the work of art – whether those materials are extracted from the quotidian sphere or complex technologies, each undergoes a process of defamiliarization and reactivation to produce the transformative aesthetic experience. The individual installations in Inhotim’s “outdoor museum” engage the spectator in a dynamic/participatory experience with spatial, temporal and material relationships that define the very essence of art’s reciprocity, or contrast with the natural and man-made worlds. It is the rarefied setting of Inhotim’s botanical gardens that makes the participatory and transformative experience central to the aesthetic encounter with installation art.