Fred Wilson
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Institutional Critique is an art term that describes the systematic inquiry into the workings of art institutions, for instance galleries and museums, and is most associated with the work of artists such as Michael Asher, Marcel Broodthaers, Daniel Buren, Andrea Fraser, Fred Wilson and Hans Haacke.
In more technical terms, Institutional Critique is an artistic term meant as a commentary of the various institutions and assumed normalities of art and/or a radical disarticulation of the institution of art (radical is linguistically understood in its relation to radix which means to get to the root of something). For instance, assumptions about the supposed aesthetic autonomy or neutrality of painting and sculpture are often explored as a subject in the field of art, and are then historically and socially mapped out (i.e., ethnographically and or archaeologically) as discursive formations, then (re)framed within the context of the museum itself. As such, it seeks to make visible the historically and socially constructed boundaries between inside and outside, public and private. Institutional critique is often critical of how of the distinctions of taste are not separate from aesthetic judgement, and that taste is an institutionally cultivated sensibility.
