Context Over Content

Dialogical art (I'll use Kester's term as I'm talking about his opinions) is said to be challenging, new and different. This is not because it challenges the Duchampian question of 'what is art?' as i believe we're beyond this point in the art world (though the general public may still be confronted by it). What is 'new' is the fact that dialogue and exchange is created between people rather that between the viewer and object. Dialogical art is also apparently more about context than content, which must be read as ideologies as substance rather than a physical object, since there is obviously content to these works (the motivations behind the work, social and political outcomes). This is where the work is similar to conceptual work, so, i would argue, not entirely new.

What i find more important is that the dialogue created by the work is focused on society, and real life, rather than becoming stuck in typical art dialgogue. And this is what critics have found problematic, it doesn't work to talk about this work purely from an aesthetic or spatial point of view, nor does it work to read this form of artworks differences as a direct retaliation to what is considered as art.

But to say that a different form of art needs to be read in a different way is nothing new... for example, aboriginal art cannot be examined the same way as abstract art.

What could be problematic about the works mentioned is that the messages behind the works play on our social consciences, so that we are forced to think the works are good because the message is right (eg. if we don't like a work about racism, we could be seen as being racist).

My question is does the approach of exchange and dialogue of dialogical art (rather than a fixed, dialectic artwork) prevent this bullying into appreciation.