relational aesthetics
For art critic and curator Nicolas Bourriaud, in the 1980s the problem was no longer to expand the boundaries of art – as in the 1960s and 1970s – but to test the resilience of art in the social field. Thus, what he called relational art emerged, which takes as its theoretical horizon the sphere of human interactions and its social context, bringing interactions with the spectator within the aesthetic experience that is offered and tools that can be used to bring individuals and groups together. humans. It does not follow the return to some style and, its producers do not have some kind of divine superiority over the spectator, they negotiate open relationships that are not pre-established.
Antagonism
The political philosophers Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, discussed in Bishop's text, base their theory of subjectivity following the principles of the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, that human beings have a failed structural identity and how subjectivity is this process of (re)identification , we are necessarily incomplete entities. Antagonism, therefore, would not be the contradiction or collision - as these concern complete identities - but the relationship that arises between these incomplete entities that are prevented from their constitution due to the presence of the “other” that prevents me from being totally me. When played on a social level, antagonism can be seen as the limits of society's ability to fully constitute itself.
critique
However, what British art historian Claire Bishop criticizes in her text “Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics” in relation to Bourriaud's relational aesthetics is that these works only become "an ever-changing portrait of the heterogeneity of everyday life". and although they claim to submit to their context, they do not question their imbrication within it. Furthermore, the relationships produced by relational works of art are fundamentally harmonious, because they address a community of subjects with something in common, they form a “microtopia”, that is, a private group that identifies itself.
Bourriaud argues that the criteria we should use to evaluate participatory and open artworks are not just aesthetic, but political and ethical, we should judge the “relationships” that are produced by relational artworks, however, the quality of these relationships, for whom and because they are produced, they are never questioned. Bishop’s critique of relational aesthetics is consolidated by defending that a democratic society is one in which conflicting relations are maintained and not erased, thus agreeing with the historian and art critic Rosalyn Deutsche: “Conflict, division and instability, then , do not ruin the democratic public sphere; are conditions of its existence.
Conflicting participation
Laclau and Mouffe's theory of democracy, as an antagonism, can be seen in the work of the Spaniard Santiago Sierra.
“The relationships produced by her performances and installations are marked by feelings of unease and discomfort rather than belonging, as the work recognizes the impossibility of a 'microtopia' and instead sustains a tension between spectators, participants and context. An integral part of this tension is the introduction of collaborators from diverse economic backgrounds, which in turn serves to challenge the self-perception of contemporary art as a domain that encompasses other social and political structures.” [1]
During the 2001 Venice Biennale, Sierra gave up her exhibition space to street vendors to display their fake handbags on a sheet on the floor, just as they did on the streets. This gesture generated an ironic analogy between art and commerce, but in addition, the sense of identity of an art public that is based on social and racial exclusions erupted, creating a moment of mutual non-identification. This malaise revealed the fragile self-constructed identity of the art world and created a game of disidentification mechanisms – explained in the “political subject” axis – as Jacques Rancière says happens in the process of political subjectivation that takes place in spaces with a political sharing of the sensitive.
Sierra's work could be considered “relational” for Bourriaud due to its open character with fluid and unrestricted relationships. However, by demarcating certain limits within this context, antagonism was possible, exposing how all our interactions are, like public space, divided by social and legal exclusions. Sierra does not try to achieve a harmonious reconciliation between the two systems, but rather to sustain the tension between them, to evidence it through friction and discomfort, that is, through the relational antagonism of Laclau and Mouffe.
“This relational antagonism would be based not on social harmony, but on exposing what is repressed to sustain the appearance of that harmony. This would thus provide a more concrete and controversial basis for rethinking our relationship to the world and to each other.” [1]
the emancipated spectator
For Bishop, the idea of the spectator’s emancipation linked to the act of literal participation, thus having a co-authorship of the work, is a misinterpretation of theoretical foundations such as “Obra Aberta”, by Umberto Eco and “O Espectador Emancipado” by Jacques Rancière. , since they speak of reception issues, since the work can produce an unlimited range of possible readings.
Clair Bishop writes: “Considering spectators who are active as interpreters, Ranciere means that the politics of participation must be based not on anti-spectacular stages of the community or the concept that mere physical activity would correspond to emancipation, but on putting to work the idea that we are equally capable of inventing our own translations. (...) This principle would not divide the audience into active and passive, capable or incapable, but would invite us to appropriate works for ourselves and make use of them in ways their authors may never have thought possible.” [two]
So, all art, immersive or not, interactive or not, requires only a reflective subject seeking to provoke the activity of thinking and, thus, being able to be a critical force that distances our thinking from the prevailing consensus.
BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES
BISHOP, Claire. Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics . CUNY Academic Works, 2004. Available at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_pubs/96/. Accessed in: September. 2021.
BISHOP, Claire. Participation . London: Whitechapel, 2006. Own translation.
BOURRIAUD, Nicolas. Post-production: how art reprograms the contemporary world . Translation by Denise Bottmann. Sao Paulo: Martins, 2009.