Taped to a light pole in San Francisco’s Mission district is a
photocopied sign that says, “LOST. Purple lighter. Answers to:
‘Hey—got a light?'” It is funny and unexpected and it will be
gone in a week. Is it art? Some might categorize it that way.
For the past couple years, I’ve struggled to come to terms with what
is known as “relational aesthetics.” Coined in 1996 by Nicolas
Bourriaud, a curator at Palais de Tokyo in Paris, relational aesthetics
refers to a by-now-popular genre of art that is formed at the moment of
social interaction. Back to the lost purple lighter: The sign includes
an e-mail address. What happens when you send a message—is art
forged once the sender hits send? Or when the receiver receives? Will
the two meet for coffee?
A banner example is artist Rirkrit Tiravanija’s Thai meals for
gallery visitors. Other artists fall in and out of the
heading—also known as social sculpture, or, more plainly,
community-based art projects—depending on where the line between
conceptual art and relational aesthetics is drawn.
Bourriaud proposes that a new critical framework is necessary for
interpreting the form. I’ll cop to a few things up front: I don’t know
what is available for critique in an art practice that’s predicated on
circumscribed social interactions; I’m troubled by not only a lack but
oftentimes outright opposition to any political motivation for the
work; and the relationship between the work and hosting institutions is
crucial to the practice, yet often goes unexamined. So those are my
biases.
The genre will be available for inspection in the Lopez Room during
Bumbershoot. The artists of Instant Coffee, a collective based in
Toronto and Vancouver, have built five freestanding kitchen nooks. They
have also made a giant afghan that will be spread out near the
International Fountain. According to collective member Jenifer
Papararo, the afghan is a “pointed place for socialization” and Instant
Coffee will “have some hospitality happen” on it. What happens when you
enter one of the nooks, or lie down on the afghan? Whatever you want.
Why those places and not somewhere else?
The nook’s design is based on Papararo’s kitchen nook, the site over
the years of countless conversations, meetings, and brainstorming
sessions among artists. The size lends itself to intimacy. In fact,
Papararo mentioned magic a few times. But does magic require artists?
“Our audience tend to be other people who make stuff, which keeps it
interesting for us,” said Papararo.
Call me an activist, but when I hear collective, I tend to think one
is formed in order to address an issue that is otherwise being ignored.
Group Material, Gran Fury, General Idea: AIDS. Guerrilla Girls: the
invisibility of women in art institutions. Reclaim the Street: rights
to public space. Should collectives address world events or be
political? No, I’ve been told time and again. Whatever. Pass
the remote.
A lot of collectives these days insist that they are either
apolitical or that what they’re doing is political in and of itself.
Both stances are unsatisfactory. The first because it seems that the
only thing gained by not being radical about anything is the assurance
that potential funders or host institutions won’t be alienated. And the
second because ultimately the only beneficiaries of the collective’s
actions are the collective members themselves. So why should we
participate?
Audience members are the littlest doll in a complex Russian nesting
doll of the institutional framework of relational aesthetics. In this
case: An audience of one to six is inside a wooden nook in the Lopez
Room at the Seattle Center during a Bumbershoot show that is actually
hosted by the Henry Art Gallery that’s attached to the University of
Washington. Put that way, there’s a lot of bureaucracy looming over the
potential for magic. And where would someone register disappointment?
Is disappointment even allowed? I would say no. Since the audience is
nested within the work, if you’re disappointed, you have only yourself
to blame. Unconditional love intends to conquer all, even radicalism.
