Abstract

The main objective of this study is to explore the interrelationship between Maurice Merleau-Ponty's ontology of vision and Installation art. Therefore, the question at stake is two-fold: first, how can Merleau-Ponty's ontology of vision, as embodiment and reversibility of perception and reflection, subject and object, enrich the understanding of Installation art, which by creating spatio-temporal environments also evokes the feeling of embodiment, physical, psychological and social; and inversely, how can Installation art illuminate Merleau-Ponty's thought. In other words, how can we apply Merleau-Ponty's notion of visuality that goes beyond sight to include other perceptions and body-motion in space and time, i.e. kinesthetic sensation, to Installation works that, conceived as corporeal environments, elicit multi-sensory or kinesthetic experience; and how then Installation works can visually engage Merleau-Ponty's thought. ;Raising such reversible questions will echo Merleau-Ponty's own reversibility thesis, which maintains that only through non-philosophy, that is art, can we fully grasp the meaning of philosophical thought, since both philosopher and artist share the same desire---to explore their relations to the world. ;In an attempt to answer this question, this study will start with an overview of Merelau-Ponty's philosophical career, from his early phenomenology to his late ontology , followed by a discussion of his essays on art . It will then proceed with situating Merleau-Ponty's philosophy in general, and his views on art in particular, between Modernist and Postmodernist philosophies. ;The study will continue with a brief historical survey of Installation art, and will then introduce specific Installations by three young international artists: Yael Bartana, Su-Mei Tse, and Sandra Cinto. ;The conclusion of this study will aim to show that, although Merleau-Ponty could not have witnessed Installation an in his life time, his philosophical thought anticipated Installation art, and is of crucial importance for understanding its artistic practices, just as inversely, Installation artworks in general, and those of Bartana, Tse, and Cinto in particular, materialize Merleau-Ponty's philosophy