Imagine if you will the following works of art: a neat rectangle of boiled sweets, in silvery wrappers (you are free to take one and eat it) laid out of the floor of a gallery; a wall of violently-strobing light bulbs that fill your entire field of vision; a small rectangle of mauve Perspex hanging just above your head, and entitled Discussion Platform.
Trying to talk to the art world about relational art is like trying to get blood of out a stone. They all exhibit and make money from the artists that Bourriaud made famous with his relational tag, but no one wants to give him credit. There is nothing more outre in the art world that an 'ism'. Why? Because an ism means fashion. The art world runs on fashions - it was photography for a few years and now it's painting. But that's something that should never be admitted.
I contacted Liam Gillick, Britian's best known 'relational' artist. I asked him why he thought he was in Bourriaud's book and what he thought he had in common with the other artists. He put the phone down on me. I sent him an email, pointing out that that was a rather impolite way to respond the inquiries of an art critic. He told me I was 'asking the wrong questions'. Then he went and told all his 'relational' friends that I was 'dangerous' and that they shouldn't talk to me. Tate Modern told me that no curator was available to answer my question, though I emailed them for two weeks. The director of the Serpentine, whose staged many 'relational' exhibitions, and whom I have interviewed before, was also mysteriously 'too busy' to comment. I was finally put in touch with Serpentine's education officer, Sally Tallant. Hiding behind a wall of impenetrable Arts-Council-speak she conceded that Bourriaud's book was important because it 'it's been useful in promoting a necessary debate. Reactions to it have been interesting ones. I think it says something about the art of our time. If you take the starting point that art is culturally produced. Art comes out of society. I think artists have always done this, like the Situationists, like Fluxus or Dada- the kind of questions raised by these art forms. I think the book allows us to ask some questions which are relevant to contemporary practice. Simon Starling's work could be argued as a relational practice.'
Installation view, Turner Prize 2005 exhibition. Copyright Simon Starling and Tate.
'The possibility of a relational art, art taking as its theoretical horizon the realm of human interaction and its social context rather than the assertion of an independent and private symbolic space points to radical upheaval of the aesthetic cultural and political goals introduced by modern art,' Nicholas Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics.
What do you think these works have in common? You've come to an exhibition at the Barbican. In the corner is a bright silver triangle, that reminds you of the most minimal minimalist art of the seventies, but as you get closer you see the shape is made of boiled sweets - there's a sign inviting you to take one and eat it). Or, you come to a private gallery in New York, where two Danish artists have installed telephone boxes with cut-price international phone cards. You can make a call on the cheap, but next door there is a table with a set of headphones, allowing other gallery goers to eavesdrop on your long distance conversation. In a Canadian museum, a German artist has installed a dazzling wall of strobing light bulbs - he says it creates an impressionistic painting inside the retina of each visitor. At Tate Modern you may have seen Olafur Eliasson's dramatic sci-fi installation in the Turbine hall, in which crowds of gallery goers gazed in awe at a large disc of orange light, while clouds of dry ice floated in the mirrored ceiling, like a vision of a Martian sunset.
Installation view, The Weather Project, Unilever series, Turbine Hall, Tat Modern. Copyright Olafur Eliasson and Tate.
All these works of art are part of a new movement in art, which has been identified and championed by a French curator and art critic, Nicholas Bourriaud, little known in this country. Keen visitors to the ICA may have noticed a neat pile of slim paperbacks which have been racked out in their bestsellers section of their bookshop for two years. The book is Relational Aesthetics by the French curator and art theorist Nicholas Bourriaud. First published in France in 1998, the message of this book has been gaining credence and acclaim steadily for seven years, suggesting that far from describing an art world fashion, it is outlining a new chapter in the history of art. Bourriaud writes: 'The possibility of a relational art, art taking as its theoretical horizon the realm of human interaction and its social context rather than the assertion of an independent and private symbolic space points to radical upheaval of the aesthetic cultural an d political goals introduced by modern art.' That's the impenetrable and pretentious language of contemporary-art-ese, but the point is simple: there is a new kind of 'art of social relations' in existence, and that there are number of artists practicing this kind of art, and that they constitute a group and a movement.
Isms first appeared in art history in the nineteenth century. In those days you only got one new ism every thirty years or so. First there was Romanticism, then classicism and Neo-classicism. Towards the end of the nineteenth century the isms increased in quantity and speed. Impressionism was followed by Post-impressionism, then Symbolism, Expressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, Constructivism, Suprematism, Surrealism (I am sure I have left some out) until by the 1960s you got Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism and Conceptualism. Most of these isms fulfilled similar criteria. There was always a group of artists who shared a similar style and set of ideas, they exhibited together and socialised together. They felt their approach to art was superior to other approaches, and that they could teach society a thing or two. Lastly their 'ism' was usually named or at least popularised by an important art critic, curator or theorist. Thus Appolinaire coined 'Cubism' and Andre Breton came up with 'Surrealism'. Relational Art follows all these criteria except one - Nicholas Bourriaud is not calling it an ism. It's 'Relational Aesthetics', not 'Relationalism' or even 'Relationism.' Why not?
Nicholas Bourriaud
I went to visit Nicholas Bourriaud at his super trendy contemporary art space in Paris, the Palais de Tokyo. The interior of the building has been deliberately left in a state of disrepair, with scaffolding, some rubble and knocked-through partitions. It's a way of subverting the traditional pristine white cube of the modernist art gallery. Inside Bourriaud has exhibited work by most of the relational artists. When I went, one wall of his gallery was decorated by the legendary anti-globalisation artist Santiago Sierra, the world's most radical living artist, who recreates Capitalist exploitation in the art gallery. There were photos of a row of junkies - Sierra paid them the price of affix to tattoo a line across their backs. In his book Bourriaud defines Relational art as 'a set of artistic practices which take as their theoretical and practical point of departure the whole of human relations and their social context, rather than an independent and private space.' But when you meet him he's a lot more down to earth. 'Relational Aesthetics is today's sensibility. Take the Pop Art of the sixties for example and you will see that the common ground was the fear of consumption. Today it totally shifted to the sphere of human relations. This is because we are not living in a production or consumption society today but in an information society.' 'Is it an ism?' I asked him. 'No,' he replied, 'I never said Relationism. That is why I wrote a book called Relational Aesthetics. I never called it an ism.' 'It is almost an ism,' I suggested doggedly. 'Well, if you insist,' he responded.
Such is the influence of this book in international art galleries and museums, that thirty years from now, if some trendy European curators get their way, the Britart phenomenon may be dismissed as a colourful sideshow, a brief nostalgic footnote in the history of punk and pop art, compared to the revolutionary redefinition of art by so-called Relational artists. Hirst's formaldehyde sheep, Emin's bed and Quinn's marble cripples may then seem as significant to the history of art, as Robbie Williams' albums are to the history of music. No wonder the British art world has done its best never to mention the 'R' word.
Nevertheless in the past two years, Relational artists have arrived in Britain. They've had retrospectives at the Serpentine, won the Turner prize, decorated the new Home Office building and filled the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern. So what exactly is Relational Art? Put most simply, Relational art is art in which the spectators form part of the artwork. Take for example the installation by Olafur Eliasson at Tate Modern last year, a work which many say is the first European masterpiece of the twenty-first century. Eliasson simply lined the roof of the enormous Turbine hall with mirrors, hung a big orange circle in front of a light source, like a setting sun, and piped in some dry ice. Yet the work only became spectacular with the presence of visitors - the scores of people standing in awe of the orange orb, or lying down, chilling out and staring at the ceiling, were part of the work of art, part of the ensemble, and in association with the things that Eliasson created, they formed a stunning apocalyptic, Martian panorama, or more simply just reminded you of the last time you watched the sun go down on a Thai beach. It's like a landscape painting of a sci-fi sunset created with real people, fog and a light. Jeremy Deller, winner of the Turner Prize, also produces relational art. His most famous work is the Battle of Orgreave. Once again the spectators became part of the work of art as he re-enacted a violence clash between police and workers during the Miner's Strike, using many of the same original participants in those events.
Rirkrit Tiravanija
Regular visitors to the Serpentine will be familiar with the work of the grand-daddy of Relational Aesthetics, the Thai-born artist Rirkrit Tiravanija, even if they have never heard of Relationalism. The Serpentine Gallery in London held a Tiravanija retrospective last year, a huge accolade for an artist, who is barely forty. Tiravanija exhibited mock-ups of the interior of his New York flat complete with futon, flatscreen TV, and fully equipped kitchen with Thai condiments. Visitors were encouraged to make themselves at home and even cook a meal. It was literally a work of art about social relations. When Tiravanija lists the media which he uses to make his works of art, it always includes 'lots of people'.
Tiravanija made a name for himself cooking at art gallery openings and then exhibiting the dirty pots plates and pans as an installation. He took the empty beer bottles put them back in their crates and piled a few on top of each other. This was a great opportunity for curators and gallery-owners, who have to serve up wine and canapés at their openings. Tiravanija was effectively offering value-added catering, since the consumption of food and drink now became an additional work of art for the exhibition catalogue. His use of pots and plates goes all the way back to Marcel Duchamp's exhibition of readymades, found objects like the urinal and a bottlerack which, if mused over, could become symbols of many things. But Tiravanija was adding a new angle on the readymade. As he puts it, 'I like to think it's like you take Duchamp's urinal take it off the wall and piss in it. Duchamp made the readymade and I am just using the readymade, along with other people hopefully.' This is important for the 'ism'. All 'isms' need to fit into to modern art history and appear to be the next step. Relationalism does just that.
Of course the ideas behind this kind of art are pretty thin, but that never inhibited an ism. What an ism needs is an avant-garde theory, which a group of artists share and publicise collectively. None of the artists exhibited and written about by Bourriaud would ever own up to being 'relational'. Labels are far too uncool nowadays. But they fulful the criteria of artists who belong to isms. In every other twentieth century 'ism' artists have claimed to be an avant-garde. They saw themselves as prophets who had a kind of superior knowledge to the rest of mankind. Just think of the Surrealists' claims to depict the hidden world of the subconscious, and the Abstract Expressionists claim to show spiritual truths in their abstract paintings.
Disappointingly, the prophetic agenda of Relational Art is based on the dullest and most outdated Marxist cultural theory, the kind that even in the eighties when these people were at college, was only taught in art schools and inner city former polytechnics. The key to the Relational theory is the old Marxist line that ordinary people are hooked on consumerism and that this has blinded them to the evils of capitalism and the charade of democracy. Thus Tiravanija and his associates argue that under Capitalism all social relations are conditioned by a financial exchange. The artist breaks this down by offering free food, a party or even temporary accommodation as a work of art. It's tosh of course. On the one hand Tiravanija is being paid to make this generous offer; on the other there are scores of relations under Capitalism that aren't determined by money. Like going to visit an art gallery for free! Neverthless the fact that the theory is not a very good one, doesn't matter. What matters is that there is a theory, which leads to an 'ism'. Relational Art once again makes a claim to be an 'ism', an art movement that is outlining a vision of a better tomorrow.
Another aspect of the theory of relational art emerges in the work of the British artist Liam Gillick. Gillick has designed the canopy for the new Home Office building in Marsham Street. It's a set of rectangles of coloured glass. In art galleries he hangs flat rectangles of Perspex from the ceiling and calls them 'discussion platforms' or builds pretty minimalist cubes of different transparent colour. These are somewhat arcane references to modernist architecture, like Corbusier's and Mies van de Rohe's, which was also full of rectangles, and which has become the standard style of skyscrapers and office buildings. For Gillick this architecture is not just a functional place to work and live, but a means to control the people who inhabit them. By creating new 'parallel structures', as the Relationalists call them, he liberates the architecture for more positive uses like 'discussions'.
All these artists know each other. This is another requirement of an ism. In Paris in the early twentieth century Braque worked with Picasso, Andre Breton organised the circle of the Surrealists, while over in Berlin the German expressionists Kirchner, Schmidt-Rottluf and Kandinsky all exhibited together. Nowadays thanks to globalisation the artists don't need to live in the same city, they just meet up at the ever-expanding number of international biennials, paid to travel by the generous state funding these events receive. There they exhibit together, party together and make films together. One example of this is the short film VICINATO written by Tiravanija, Gillick, the French artist Philippe Parreno and the German Carsten Holler. A group of people are milling around on a hilltop, one says: 'Speculation is the genius of capitalism to find new multiple forms of itself in a post-Utopian world. That is why you get behavioural adjustments like casual Fridays where you wear what you like to work that is why you find pool, tables in the middle of the office as a way to encourage creative exchange.These are new forms of capitalism to make people feel good while maintaining the old relationships.' Another actor replies: 'But maybe if people feel good they will be more willing to speculate and less likely to plan.' There then follows a voice-over with a vocoder effect: When you feel good you are more likely to speculate and less likely to plan.'
So is it an ism, or isn't it? Nowadays new isms aren't called isms - it's the new art world omerta. Isms are associated with the history of modernism which ended with post-modernism. Now, art critics want us to think that we are post-post-modernism and in this new era artists are all individuals often producing work inn a variety of style. While this is partly true, it's also just a new marketing strategy. After a century of selling art collectors with a new ism every ten years, that tactic has started to look out of date. But it is till true that different eras produce different kinds of art, and Relationalism is the art of our time. In some ways it is different from all the isms that have gone before In the past Expressionist artists only ever made Expressionist works. It is true that occasionally artists went from one ism to another - so Jackson Pollock started out as a Surrealist before becoming an Abstract Expressionist. But today Relational Artists don't exclusively make Relational works of art. Their work is not always about social relations and doesn't always require spectators to create the work. Nevertheless it would be foolish to expect a new ism to follow exactly the same rules as every previous ism. In some ways it is different from all the isms that have gone before. Relationalism is as near to an ism and we have got right now. There are a large group of works of art which clearly share common characterstics, which the artists, curators and critics recognise. The works carry a similar cultural message. They are exhibited and ever more enthusiastically collected, and they are part of an ongoing trend, towards works of art that are less and less defineable as objects.
Another French art theorist Yves Michaud recently published the next important French book of art theory, called Art is a Gas (L'art dans l'etat gazeuse). He argues that nowadays more and more artistic content is surfacing in our everyday lives - from over-designed Alessi can-openers to artist-designed spotty boats - and that more and more everyday practices are entering the art gallery - like eating Thai food, listening to a radio show, going for a cycle ride. In the future it will be more and more difficult to tell what is a social interaction or something that we use, and what is a work of art. 'Will there ever be post-relational art?' I asked Nicholas Bourriaud. 'I hope so,' he answered. 'In the book, which I wrote in the late nineties, I was talking about twenty artists. Now there are hundreds of them.'
Ben Lewis
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