Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics. Claire Bishop

Antagonism and Relational AestheticsClaire Bishop. October Journal.

Mark Lewis. The Fight

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Palais de Tokyo

“Site for contemporary creation”



Art Factories…



The Experience EconomyThe Experience Economy

Carsten Holler. The Unilever Series

Public Art to RegeneratePublic Art to Regenerate







YBAs / Relational Aesthetics



Clement Greenberg1909 - 1994



“the realm of human interactionsand its social context, rather than theassertion of an independent andprivate symbolic space”Nicolas Bourriaud 1965

Greenberg / Bourriaud

Relationship to other mediums…

Installation ArtPeter CoffinUntitled (Spiral Staircase)2006



1960s Performance ArtGunter BrusWiener Spaziergang 1965





Jorge Pardo’s Pier for Skulpture. Projekte Munster (1997)

“relational art works insist upon use rather than contemplation”





1. A new ism must develop from an old ism

2. A New ism is a new way of thinking about Art

3. Artists of an ism must hang out together

4. A new ism in invented by an Art critic

5. A new era leads to a new ism

Ben Lewis Art Safari

Key Artists• Traffic CAPC Bordeaux 1996• Rirkrit Tiravanija• Phillippe Parreno• Pierre Huyghe• Carston Holler• Christine Hill• Vanessa Beecroft• Maurizio Cattelan• Jorge Pardo


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Gillick / Tiravanija

Rirkrit TiravanijaUntitled (Free). 303 Gallery, New York, 1992

Rirkrit Tiravanija



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Liam Gillick

Pinboard Project. (1992)

Prototype Erasmus Table No. 2 (1994)

Liam Gillick



German Pavilion 2009How are You going to Behave?A kitchen cat speaks



Nothing New…

Stephen Willats



Around the Networks. January 2002

The poetics of the “work in movement” (and partly that of the “open” work) sets in motion a new cycle of relations between the artist and his audience, a new mechanics of aesthetic perception, a different status for the artistic product in contemporary society. It opens a new page in sociology and in pedagogy, as well as a new chapter in the history of art. It poses new practical problems by organizing new communicative situations. In short, it installs a new relationship between the contemplation and the utilization of a work of art.

Umberto Eco. The Open Work 1962

• Bourriaud Structure of an art work produces a social relationship

Theorists



Grant Kester

“The emphasis is on the character of this interaction, not the physical or formal integrity of a given artifact or the artist’s experience in producing it”. Conversation Pieces

page 10



Felix Gonzales-Torres Untitled (Placebo), 1991

• Bourriaud relies too heavily on the works’ relational content

Problems…

How do we critique the works?



antagonism

Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe

A democratic society is one in which relations in conflict must be sustained and not erased.

Without antagonism there is only the imposed consensus of authoritarian order.


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Sierra / Hirschhorn

Santiago Sierra

Similarly involves the literal setting up of relations

…the relations are marked by sensations of unease and discomfort rather than belonging

Collaborates with participants from a diverseeconomic background



2001 Venice Biennale



Thomas Hirschhorn 1957











T.H Bateille Monument





Familiarity Bataillean themes: word, sex, image, art and sport



Experience/ HonestyExperience/ Honesty

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Relational Antagonism is predicted not on social harmony but on exposing that which is repressed in sustaining the semblance of this harmony.

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Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics. Claire Bishop