Enchantment Summary

When referring to enchantments-type installation, Kurt Schwitters’s work ‘Merzbau’ is often thought of. The work being a walk-through environment built into his home in Germany, compromising every surface with rectilinear or biomorphic wood and plaster forms, discarded objects, and materials donated by friends.
‘An installation can transport its viewer into a state of awe, providing also a sense of physical smallness,’ possibly even convert the viewer to the vision of the creator, Schwitters writing a “contemplative immersion of the self in art.”
Enchantment relates mainly on theatrical roots and the a suspension of disbelief, as the viewer witnesses an extreme vision of reality or a sense of being inside the artist’s mind.
Due to the envelopment of the viewer completely, enchanted spaces won’t often relate to the architectural setting they are installed into, artist quite amenable to moving their installation or fitting into another location if asked.
In the 1920s, experimentation of installation began to grow. Duchamp was a crucial figure of this form of art, he made an installation that ‘at once compromised all the paintings by other artists hung in the space, while embodying a work of art on its own.’ Duchamp hanging 12 hundred sacks of coal from above, along with leaves and a brazier on the ground. Salvador Dali also braving installation pieces, his work ‘Dream of Venus’ a full scale, highly theatrical installation, along with ‘Merzbau,’ set the stage for enchantments through a surreal tinge that either bewitched, perplexed and frighted viewers.
After WWII, the development of Disneyland in California was seen as another example of enchantment. “Here you leave today and enter a world of yesterday, tomorrow and fantasy.” It shaped the public’s expectations about similar experiences – suggesting that a complete environment of sensory pleasures can be a possible ‘leisure situation.’ The development of Disneyland having possibly influenced the events known as the happenings. Begun by Alan Kaprow, these were theatrically orientated, offering the possibility through staging replete with sensory stimulation.
Video instillations also follow the model of the enchantment, with the viewer standing before a dream or nightmare like world, more often contemplating that participating.
Enchantment creating the feeling that one has entered the mind of the artist, seeing the wildly diverse ideas and interests they possess.