Relational Aesthetics

I am mindless after reading;
Hal Foster, “Arty Party”.
Claire Bishop, “Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics”.
Liam Gillick, “Contingent Factors: A Response to Claire Bishop’s “Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics”.
Claire Bishop ‘Claire Bishop Responds”.
Nicolas Bourriaud, “Relational Aesthetics”.
The Preface to “The Art of Social Imagination, Collectivism after Modernism” (the book had to be returned as it was a week only loan).
Nicolas Bourriaud, “Postproduction” (up to page 33).
Multiples of images and information of artists (with thanks to the web).

Never have been fortunate enough to see any of the exhibitions of the artists discussed I am hesitant to proffer any opinion more over offer any critical response. However, after this sojourn into the world of the art critic I will respond from an observational point of view. The idea (Hal Foster) “these artists aim to turn passive viewers into a temporary community of active interlocutors” has yet to reveal its propensity to me as art form. The words ‘discursivity and sociability”, “a place of socialization” bandy themself around in particular to Tiravanija and Gillick and fall into Nicolas Bourriaud’s ‘Relational Aesthetics”. Art imitates life and vice a versa. If art is an engagement in critical thought these works may meet the mark. However, in reality, I could meet strangers or friends and engage socially at any time.
I have a leaning to concur with Claire Bishop and find Sierra and Hirschhorn more thought provoking. In all there is a historical rebellion of artists to question and refute the established order and art itself; as in the Dada’s response to war and meaning. Our present day’s response to the age of technological and dare I say, war and displacement mirrors just that and is a continuum.