Growing relational aesthetics (Kerry)

There are many examples in the world of contemporary art where the artwork itself is not a physical object, like a painting or sculpture, but rather is a performance. Nicolas Bourriaud suggests that “the work of art may thus consist of a formal arrangement that generates relationships between people, or be born of a social process.” (Bourriaud, 2007, p. 32) He describes this artistic practice as relational aesthetics. The main feature of relational aesthetics is “to consider interhuman exchange an aesthetic object in and of itself.” (Bourriaud, 2007, p. 33)

Nicolas Bourriaud published his book Relational Aesthetics in 1998 as a series of essays on the state of contemporary art. (Bourriaud, 2002) He asserts that modernity was based on the Enlightenment desire to free humankind and to help to usher in a better society. However he sees that the advance of technologies and the rationalisation of the production process shackled the Enlightenment project. Nevertheless he claims that today’s art is “carrying on this fight [to free humankind and help to usher in a better society], by coming up with perceptive, experimental, critical and participatory models.” (Bourriaud, 2002, p. 12) Rather than preparing and announcing a future world, today’s art is “modelling possible universes.” (Bourriaud, 2002, p. 13) Bourriaud considers that art is now about “learning to inhabit the world in a better way” so that “the role of artworks is no longer to form imagined and utopian realities, but to actually be ways of living and models of action within the existing real.” (Bourriaud, 2002, p. 13) This argument continues by contrasting the idea of works of art as trophies on the wall of the collector, which can be walked through, to artworks as “periods of time to be lived through.” ( Bourriaud, 2002, p. 15) Thus artworks are experienced, as an encounter, or as a hands-on experience. This encounter may take place in a museum or at an exhibition or wherever the art is situated. It is typified by the interhuman exchange between the viewers of, or participators in, the work and the work itself.

Several works of this kind, which encouraged viewer participation, were included in the In the Balance: Art for a Changing World exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in 2010. For example, Sydney-based artist Diego Bonetto has created a work called 5 terrariums, 5 tours and a world of Facebook friends. Bonetto’s work is in three parts. He has arranged five terrariums in the Museum with soil gathered from particular sites around Sydney. Weeds have regenerated spontaneously in these enclosed environments. He has designed a Facebook [1] campaign encouraging participants to befriend a ‘weed’. And lastly, he has organised five group tours of Sydney, led by the artist, visiting public parks and gardens to learn about the weeds growing in them. This work is part of Bonetto’s ‘Weedy Project’ which he describes as “a personal reading of connections between human activity and the environment,” (Kent, 2010, p. 34) something he thinks of as an ‘ethnoscape’ which shows the way that all things are linked and interdependent.

One of the four curators of the In the Balance exhibition, Rachel Kent, describes Bonetto’s art practice as treading lightly, “leaving little in the way of material traces and finding ways to communicate through public participation and interaction.” (Kent, 2010, p. 34) Another artist group in the same exhibition, known as The Artist as Family (AaF), has created a permaculture garden, Food Forest, in the grounds of St Michael’s Church in Surry Hills. The group consists of Patrick Jones, his partner, Meg Ulman, and his eight-year-old son, Zephyr Ogden Jones. Their work in Surry Hills consists of a public garden, works on paper and a blog [2], which documents the group’s activities in the garden. The intention of the work is “not only to renew a local ecology [that is, an underused church lawn] but to stimulate ‘social warming’ – a term [Jones] has coined to describe the enhancement of interpersonal relationships through ‘a process of sharing resources such as food, art, land and energy’.” (Davis, 2010, p. 18) To this end the artist has invited the community to assist in the construction and tending of the garden. According to Museum of Contemporary Art curator, Anna Davis, Food Forest is also “a call to action for the arts community to take a more dominant role in creating a sustainable future.” (Davis, 2010, p. 18) The Artist as Family has created a collaborative work that directly fits with Bourriaud’s idea of relational aesthetics where the art is an encounter, a hands-on experience involving the community and the artist together.

Footnotes:

[1] http://www.facebook.com/pages/weedbook-Sydney/113858111997291

[2] http://theartistasfamily.blogspot.com

References:

Bourriaud, Nicolas. Postproduction. New York: Lukas and Sternberg, 2007.

———. Relational Aesthetics. Dijon-Quetigny: Les presses du réel, 2002.

Davis, Anna. "The Artist as Family." In In the Balance: Art for a Changing World, edited by Rachel Kent. Sydney: Museum of Contemporary Art, 2010.

Kent, Rachel. "Diego Bonetto: Weedy Connections." In In the Balance: Art for a Changing World, edited by Rachel Kent. Sydney: Museum of Contemporary Art, 2010.