Relational Aesthetics

Relational Aesthetics 

Nicolas Bourriad

Bourriaud, Nicolas. "Relational Form." Relational Aesthetics. [Dijon]: Leses Du Réel, 2002. 11-24. Print.

Date: 10/17/2012

List of primary claims made in this reading:

Bourriand argues that modern technology and urbanization has led to limited “encounters” that reflect real relationships. Relational aesthetics aims to create an “arena for exchange” that encourages human interaction and comradery.

Bourriand suggests that art is never ending stream of encounters, the artwork is the structure or “binding agent” for specific encounters in history.

Looking at relational art, Bourriaurd asks that we not look at the work as “forms” but as “formations,” for the reason that “relational art” is activated by the viewer’s relation with the art, artists, and environment. 

I agree with Bourriand in that art is/has always been a place of encounter for the viewer. In present-day, the object seems to have been removed from that “encounter” and what is focused on in relational art is the encounter, finding a different “game” for that encounter. 

Key Quotes:

“Nowadays, modernity extends into the practice of cultural do-it-yourself and recycling, into the invention of the everyday and the development of time lived, which are not objects less deserving of attention and examination than Messianistic utopias and the formal “novelties” that typified modernity yesterday.” (Pg. 14)

“The possibility of relational art (an art taking as its theoretical horizon the realm of human interactions and its social context, rather than the assertion of an independent and private symbolic space)…” (Pg. 14)

“I see and perceive, I comment, and I evolve in a unique space and time. Art is the place that produces a specific sociability.” (Pg. 16)

“This interstice term was used by Karl Marx to describe trading communities that elude the capitalist economic context by being removed from the law of profit: barter, merchandising, autarkic types of production, etc. This interstice is a space in human relations which fits more or less harmoniously and openly into the overall system, but suggests other trading possibilities that that is in effect with in this system. This is the precise nature of the contemporary art exhibition in the arena of representational commerce: it creates free areas, and time spans whose rhythm contracts with those structuring everyday life, and it encourages an inter-human commerce that differs from the “communication zones” that are imposed upon us.” (Pg. 16)

“The essence of humankind is purely trans-individual, made up of bonds that link individuals together in social forms which are invariably historical (Mark: the human essence is the set of social relations).” (Pg. 18)

“A new game is announced as soon as the social setting radically changes, without the meaning of the game itself being challenged.” (Pg. 19)

“The contemporary artwork’s form is spreading out from its material form: it is a linking element, a principle of dynamic agglutination. An artwork is a dot on a line.” (Pg. 21)

“In observing contemporary practices, we ought to talk of “formations” rather than “forms”. (Pg. 21)

List of facts/stats discussed in this reading:

Gabriel Orozco, Crazy Tourist, 1991

Gabriel Orozco, Hamoc en la moma, 1993

Jens Haaning, Turkish Jokes, 1994.

Questions from the reading?

Has the issue of commodity been a defining factor in the evolution of “relational aesthetics”?

I think it’s interesting to think “relational art” is art, has always been art, etc. Do you think art is going to circle back around to objectivity or commodifiable objects?

Does this present two art markets, completely separate of one another, if not, where might they intersect? How?