Relational Aesthetics
1996 onwards

When the term Relational Aesthetics was coined by Nicolas Bourriaud in 1996, the art world had a long history of exploring questions surrounding what constitutes art. Art has travelled from being a presentation of physical objects for mere beauty to a complex arena consisting of many modes of articulating the creative concept. Relational Aesthetics initially embraced work that sought to produce a temporary event or environment in which the audience could participate to assimilate the artist’s impetus or message, with content and form being less important than the interactive experience. This critical distillation is still ambiguous in its open-endedness; however, it reflects the importance of the evolutions of a long lineage of art that values the social encounter over the end product.

Relational Aesthetic works are usually based upon the artist’s communication of their mission in a public space where the viewers are not limited to the traditional spectators of art. Expanding a work’s exposure to far-reaching spectatorship, the pieces are considered to be examples of temporary democracies.

Bourriaud referred to Relational artists and their audiences as “microtobias” in that their communal bonds formed from their experiences created a temporary space for experiencing human connectivity within the context of the works. Much of this art evokes and inspires political conscientiousness and change.

Relational pieces often evoke the viewing public with a considered provocation that allows unrelated individuals to engage in a common feeling or event they might not otherwise experience collectively.

The subjectivity of an artist is often avoided in the presentation of Relational work and replaced by the experience of the piece and the people participating within it as they combine in the present time to determine the tone and evoke the meaning of the work. Many movements within Modern art are seen as a part of a shifting trend towards an understanding and practice of art that is not restricted to the production of aesthetic objects for exhibition. Including Dadaism, Happenings, Fluxus, Situationism, and Performance these trends encompass the creation of situations and social encounters within the everyday milieu that focus on socio-political and social change.

Artists involved in the Dada movement of the early 20th century were among the first to think about art conceptually. Instead of aiming to create visually pleasing objects, Dadaists sought a way to use art to critique and challenge aspects of society including bourgeois attitudes. Artists such as Hugo Ball and Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven found non-object-based practices such as installation and performance useful in this regard. Dadaists found themselves tackling pivotal questions regarding the role of the artist and the nature of art.

Allan Kaprow coined the term “happenings” in 1959 to refer to ephemeral, theatrical, and also participatory art-related events, many conceived to be open-ended, allowing for improvisation. To honour this sense of spontaneity artists created rough guidelines, as opposed to strict rules or scripts for the participants to follow. The social context and dynamics, and groups of participants involved in each happening were an integral part of the form the events took, resulting in the same performance developing differently each time it was carried out. The core value of the artists creating Happenings was art could be brought into the world of everyday life.

The Situationists, active from 1957-1962, were influenced by the Marxist theory of living under capitalism individuals experience alienation and social degradation, and Guy Debord’s theory that the mediation of social relations occurs through objects. Situational artists sought to offer solutions to these concepts and focused on works that brought people into contact and shared experiences with others.

The Fluxus artists, active from 1959 to 1978, challenged the long-held tradition of art being contained within institutions and requiring an educated viewer. Their aim was to bring art into the realm of everyday life and available to the masses. Like Dadaists, Fluxus art critiqued societal issues and bourgeois sentimentality. The work of the Fluxus artists was characterized by humour, playfulness, the element of chance, and audience involvement. Fluxus events were shaped by a brief set of instructions that performers, artists, and/or the audience carried out. For these artists, the process mattered more than the end result.

The term “Relational Aesthetics” was first used in the catalogue for the 1996 exhibition Traffic, curated by Nicolas Bourriaud at the CAPC musée d’Art Contemporain de Bordeaux. Traffic included many artists associated with Relational Aesthetics including Henry Bond, Maurizio Cattelan, Vanessa Bee Croft, Liam Gillick, Jorge Pardo, and Rirkrit Tiravaija.

Bourriaud used described many relational works using terms associated with technological culture including user-friendliness, interactivity, and DIY. Bourriaud saw these works as a developmental process in response to the change in mental space opened up by the Internet.

Relational artwork seeks to create an open-ended environment in which viewers and artists take part in a shared experience. Bourriaud also identified political consciousness and social change as aspects of relational art with both artists and participating viewers learning to live in the world in a better way

Bourriaud curated the 2002 exhibition “Touch: Relation Art from the 1990s to Now” at the San Francisco Art Institute, including works by Angela Bulloch, Felix Gonzale-Torres, Philippe Parreno, Liam Gillick, Andrea Zittel, Jens Haaning, and Gillian Wearing.

The Guggenheim Museum hosted “Theanyspacewhatever” exhibition featuring several Relation Aesthetics artists in 2008. However, Nancy Spector, the curator, did not want to engage with the term Relational Aesthetics and its highly problematic critics and scholars so intentionally did not use the term in the exhibition.

Relational Aesthetics has been much criticized for ambiguity and elusive slippage from the grasp of any specific definition. Rather than envisioning object-based parameters or groups, it is more apt to locate Relational Aesthetics in how Contemporary art addresses and implicates the viewer.

Relational Aesthetics work relies on the viewer participation, whether by assimilation into an actual performance of a piece, or as an active participant within a constructed set of variables supplied by the artist. Ultimately, they rely on the audience’s contribution to exist although the outcome is as unpredictable as the human condition they strive to manifest temporarily.

Artist creating Relational Aesthetics works often forgo the gallery or institutional setting to display their work and the size of the viewing audience is an impetus in that decision. Relying on the communal human experience to articulate their work, the artists’ success is dependent on the connection between the artist and the audience.

Resources

Tate Modern Artists: Olafur Eliasson (Modern Artists Series) by Marcella Beccaria