Bourriaud argues that art of the 1990s takes as its theoretical
horizon “the realm of human interactions and its social context, rather than the
assertion of an independent and private symbolic space” (RA, p. 14). In other
words, relational art works seek to establish intersubjective encounters (be these
literal or potential) in which meaning is elaborated collectively (RA, p. 18) rather
than in the privatized space of individual consumption. The implication is that
this work inverses the goals of Greenbergian modernism.9 Rather than a discrete,
portable, autonomous work of art that transcends its context, relational art is
entirely beholden to the contingencies of its environment and audience.
Clair Bishop, “Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics,” October, No. 110, 2004 (pg 53-54)
Referring to the bold section; in the first few pages of Bishops article, this recent memory wedged itself in my frontal lobe. It was while visiting Olafur Eliasson’s Take Your Time 2010 exhibition at the MCA a few months ago when my friend Ana and I first walked up the stairs we were excitedly confronted by a sea of Lego- half finished Lego sculptures surrounded by thousands upon thousands of little Lego pieces sprawled across a table with finished masterpieces (and not so masterpieces) sitting on the floor around the edges of the open exhibition space.
An interactive piece of the exhibition, Ana got to work adding to two half-finished sky scrapers sitting on the table and I set myself the challenge of a plane. About 30minutes later, with our finished pieces in hand, we realised we could actually collaborate to remake one of the worlds most publicised terrorist attacks- September 11.
We lit up with excitement talking about the scene we could create and the fun destruction of a tower shortly ahead of us, only to be hastily frozen with the confronting idea that leaped from Ana’s mouth “hold on, are we gonna’ offend people if we do this?”
We made our decision but I’m sure others over the five months the exhibition ran for decided differently.
ha! i think i saw this work!! cool!
ReplyDeleteI could not get the hang of making the lego look like much at all.. hence leaving the table frustrated :)