Relational Aesthetics

Nicolas Bourriaud, author of Relational Aesthetics, describes relational art as “an art taking as its theoretical horizon the realm of human interactions and its social contexts, rather than the assertion of an independent and private symbolic space.”

At first blush, the idea of relational art was quite attractive to me. I thought that I had finally found the key to my distaste of art. I felt it was so self-serving, egocentric and ultimately not affecting anything significant. However, here now was an entire movement of art focused on the sphere of human interaction, with many of its practitioners working to bring the community together, to get people out of their shells and open up to each other.

"In Relational Art, the audience is envisaged as a community. Rather than the artwork being an encounter between a viewer and an object, relational art produces intersubjective encounters. Through these encounters, meaning is elaborated collectively, rather than in the space of individual consumption." [Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics, p17]

It seems as Bourriaud's ideas had some time to settle, people began to react against "relational aesthetic", or at least seek to clarify Bourriaud. Claire Bishop, Professor of Art History-CUNY, wrote about needing clarity on the differences between “relational” and “participatory,” the confusion of which greatly diminishes our ability to think about art that uses “people as a medium.”

Some wonder if the reach of "relational aesthetics" is not aggressive enough. While Bourriaud argues that the movement is political, and throws off the patterns of past art movements that sought revolutionary change. "Although Bourriaud does not spell out the difference between total and microrevolution clearly and indeed even muddies the waters of his argument, this is essentially the point he is trying to make. Relational interventions function at the micropolitical level, more specifically the interpersonal level. Accordingly the viewer becomes critically important in the relational aesthetic thesis." ["On Nicolas Bourriaud’s Relational Aesthetics", Graham Coulter-Smith, artintelligence]

There is no mistaking that this is a form of artistic interpretation of the world that does not aim to overcome the system of organized exploitation and domination. At most, relational art attempts to model the bandaging of social damage and to “patiently re-stitch the social fabric”: “Through little services rendered, the artists fill in the cracks in the social bond.” (p.36) [A Very Short Critique of Relational Aesthetics, Radical Culture Research Collective (RCRC)]

Claire Bishop again: "One could argue that in this context, project-based works-in-progress and artists-in-residence begin to dovetail with an “experience economy,” the marketing strategy that seeks to replace goods and services with scripted and staged personal experiences.5 Yet what the viewer is supposed to garner from such an “experience” of creativity, which is essentially institutionalized studio activity, is often unclear." [Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics]

I'm wondering if RA is a bit of a surrender to current systems. Do i even want to change current systems? Is a surrender "wrong"? Am I content to work within that system? Bourriaud's RA seems nice, but the critics' points are valid as well. RA artists are becoming celebrities, and RA art is being exhibited in galleries and museums, just as any other artform, and the viewing audience are the same upper-class collectors and upper-middle class throngs that have always filled those museums and galleries and biennials. Does RA's use of people exploit them? Does RA further stratify and reinforce the separations of collector, viewer, participant?