Off the wall: Art installations at local galleries encourage audience interaction

When it comes to art, this time it's OK to touch.

Two receptions Friday feature installation art — Charlie Kent at the Black Door Gallery and Jennifer Weigel at the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri.

Installation art is more about experiencing art rather than just seeing it. The displays often require the patron to walk through or around things to navigate the exhibit. It places the focus more on concept rather than form or appearance.

With installation art, "the artist is really responding to that space," said Emily Booth, gallery coordinator at the Art Gallery in the Seminary Building of the River Campus. Booth recently scheduled an installation artist from Memphis, Tenn., to display in the gallery in 2010.

"It's definitely different than that sort of traditional wall art," Booth said. With sculpture, "you can put it in that room and it will be that object. You can put it outside and it will still be that object."

Installation art is more "site-specific," she said. It incorporates "how a person moves through it and involves the physicality" into the piece.

St. Louis-based artist Weigel's installation "Dutch Elm Disease" covers the floor of the Lorimier Gallery in the Arts Council. A Styrofoam tree trunk sits in the middle of fabric leaves, which have the word "Help" written on each one.

"I'm hoping that people will walk through it and track them everywhere," she said.

Her pieces have conceptual tendencies. She calls this particular project a tribute to an American elm tree she lost to Dutch elm disease.

She and her husband have a small backyard with a fence and until recently, a tree.

"It was our tree," she said. People tramping through and scattering the leaves, "helps me to release," she said.

People walking through, over and under the pieces of art, usually help finish the piece in installation art. The interaction makes the art.

People often wander through a gallery thinking "don't touch," Weigel said. "I much prefer to encourage audience participation."

"It's kind of more about the experience," she said. "I kind of like the idea that the art lives on with the person."

ONLINE

View Charlie Kent's installation at semissourian.com.