Abstract

The word "installation" has been used in the art world as the meaning of "place" or "display" of art work . But nowadays it also means "a temporarily arranged environmental work" in a broad sense. This essay attempts to show how this term extended its meaning through the relation to some new art movements of America in the 1960's and the 1970's. In the 1900's the environment around work or the environmental element of work became so important that the installation of work, which is connected with the environment, also required its significance to the extent that it was an element immanent in work itself. From late 1960's to early 1970's another issues, namely the process and the temporarity of work, occurred and its installation gained new significance. The word "installation" is fundamentally the term on act it can include these phenomenal aspects. Finally with regard to the temporarily constructed environmental work the word "installation" was substituted for the word "work." In addition to this extension process of its meaning in America, I try to examine how the term has been introduced and adopted in the Japanese art world in its peculiar way