Impressive new app documents 17 years of site-specific installation art in Texas

Of all the creative disciplines we write about, site specific installation art is by far the most tricky. So much depends on being there, on seeing, smelling, touching even sometimes tasting the piece that online coverage can feel a bit fruitless. Huge kudos then to the Rice Gallery in Texas – which always gives over its space to artists for one-off installation pieces (like this) – for launching a new iPad app documenting the work they’ve hosted over since 1995.

What’s good is that the designers have recognised the inherent limitations of such a task and rather than use gimmicks to try and recreate the work in full they’ve focussed on simply giving as much detail possible within the app format. So there’s lots of great pictures to give you the fullest possible sense of what went on, plus videos and text to help inform and inspire.

Not only is this an intersecting addition to the discourse around how we document artworks in the digital age, it’s also a quiet design triumph in its own right mainly thanks to its willingness to keep things simple.