Relational Aesthetics, a term from Nicolas Bourriaud, is a way of giving already-existing social structures a patina of transgressive radicality via terminology. It is extremely zeitgeisty. It is a good term to throw at non-initiates who struggle to understand what this kind of art is all about. See especially the article by Claire Bishop, who finds the liberatory- emancipatory- utopian- redemptive- promesse-de-bonheur capacities of the art to be lacking.
Primary sources:
- Nicolas Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics (Les Presses du Reel)
- Interview of Miroslav Kulchitsky with Nicolas Bourriaud (03.98)
- "Public Relations," Bennet Simpson interviews Nicolas Bourriaud, Artforum (05.01)
- "Nicolas Bourriaud and Karen Moss," (10.02)
- Glossary, from Relational Aesthetics via gairspace.co.uk
Secondary Sources:
- "Relational Art: Is it an Ism?" (07.04)
- Claire Bishop, "Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics," October (fall 04)
- Susan Kelly, "The Transversal and the Invisible: How do you really make a work of art that is not a work of art?" (01.05)
- David Wilson McLeish, "And for the art snobs: relational aesthetics, please" (16.05.05)
- Anna Dezeuze, "Transfiguration of the Commonplace" (spring 05)
- "Traffic Control: Joe Scanlan on Social Space and Relational Aesthetics" Artforum (summer 05)
- Walead Beshty, "Neo-Avantgarde and Service Industry: Notes on the Brave New World of Relational Aesthetics," Texte zur Kunst (09.05)
Blogs and websites:
- Jean Burgess, "Relational aesthetics" (03.05)
- Rob Myers, "Relational Aesthetics Considered Auratic," 16.08.05
- "Happy to Meet You: An Introduction to Relational Art"
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