The Necessity of Antagonism.

"Without antagonism there is only the imposed consensus of authoritarian order - a total suppression of debate and discussion, which is inimical to democracy" Bishop

Bishop may be subject to inaccuracies in reporting facts, scathing of the idea of microtopias and she just doesn't seem to get the concept of 'open-endedness' and the unnecessary presence of an 'auratic signifier' but she remains an important and intelligent voice in the discourse surrounding Relational Aesthetics. Hers is the voice of antagonism which dares to question - along with Hal Foster - the artistic practice and theoretical discourse of Relational Aesthetics.

As the artistic praxis of Relational Aesthetics is increasingly adopted by artists and curators and sanctioned by institutions such as The Palais de Tokyo there has been a need to invite a sustained critique of the validity of such a practice and to evaluate the effectiveness and quality of such work.

Both Bishop and Foster question the autonomy of the curator, who are 'maestros of large shows..' and whose status is enhanced by the orchestration of the "laboratory experience". According to Foster, "the institution becomes the spectacle, it collects the cultural capital..."and in doing so contradicts the artistic intention of creating a social interstice which transcends the capitalist agenda of a service economy.

The leading theorist of Relational Aesthetic artists, Nicolas Bourriaud, is also co-director of an institution which has embraced Relational Aesthetics as its specific theoretical program.

Gillick claims, in his reply to Bishop, that he also questioned the role of curator as art-star in a letter to Bourriaud.

Bishop states she does not suggest Relational works need to develop a greater social conscience

but it is undoubtedly the work of two such artists - Sierra and Hirschhorn - that she promotes as contributing to the democratic premise of Relational Aesthetics much more than Gillick and Tiravanija, who she sees as being promoted by Bourriaud. It was Bourriaud who positioned Relational Art as the new avant garde of political practice by stating that Relational Artists were taking up the legacy of the Twentieth Century avant gardes..." Yet Bourriaud deflates and deflects this claim by stating that the new artists are relieved of any idealistic claim for antagonism and social change as they are "concerned with negotiation, bonds, and co-existences". He states that the artists he is concerned with are not motivated by any utopian ideals of social change but accept the 'existing real" and "learn to inhabit the world in a better way". Bourriaud's ideal of a microtopia is questioned by Bishop as one in which does not invite the antagonism necessary for a healthy functioning democracy and one in which does not represent a community outside the safe confines of the gallery system. Indeed it is difficult to envision an effective social movement or collaboration within the institutionalised space of the gallery, which is hardly separate from the capitalist system of social relations. Harder still to engage in politically relevant and effective models of change when the Director encourages the adoption of a pessimistic and limiting philosophical framework.