c Claire Bishop

-Art

of

the

encounter:

Antagonism and Relational

Aesthetics

In this Relational

paper

I present

a response from

to Nicolas

Bourriaud's and

At 303 Gallery Iregularly sat with or was joined by

strangers, for sharing, and itwas nice. and The frank gallery talk. became I had a place jocularity an amazing

aesthetics

an art-historical

theoretical perspective. By this Idon't mean locating it - in social historically inart of the 1960s and 70s sculp
ture, installation, performance and 'service' art by artists

run of meals with art dealers. Once Iate with Paula Cooper who recounted a long, complicated bit of
professional gossip. Another day, one Lisa Spellman of her artists. related

as diverse as the Fluxus Group, Joseph Beuys, Daniel

Allen Spoerri, Vito Acconci, Ruppersberg, Marina Mierle and Laderman others although Ukeles, Abramovic

in hilarious detail a story of intrigue about a fellow dealer

trying, unsuccessfully, and he said, We did, to woo About a

wish this history certainly needs to be written. Nor do I

to locate Bourriaud's significant Barthes' Open intrude work. theoretical 'Death in relation of essays to as Roland precursors-such or Umberto of the author', Eco's The collection I wish to discuss relational aesthet

week
the go

later Iate with David Zwirner. Ibumped

"nothing's and he going talked about

into him on

street,

to Rirkrit's."

let's right today, a lack of

excitement
with about Gavin

in the New York art world. Another time Iate

Brown, the artist of SoHo only in the and dealer... who talked it, felt it he welcomed

Rather,

ics in terms of two connected

upon discussions of

problems that persistently

'relational' art: firstly, the

the collapse

was about time, that the galleries had been showing too
much mediocre art. Later show's run, was I joined

problematic status that this work holds as an object of critical and historical judgment, and secondly, the
assumption underpinning Bourriaud's book (and a great

deal of other writing on contemporary art) that art

between viewers encouraging dialogue a 'good thing', and moreover democratic. For the of economy of to me that and relational the is unequivocally

by an unidentified woman and a curious flirtation filled the air. Another time Ichatted with a young artist who lived inBrooklyn who had real insights about the shows
he'd just seen.

33

purposes

clarity, art-

I will

take

one

The informal chattiness of this account clearly indicates what kind of problems face those who wish to know more
about such work: the review only of tells us thatTiravanija's

as paradigmatic artist since his art seems Bourriaud's inter-subjective in a particular case, visitors gallery. eating As argument

RirkritTiravanija expression of

clearest art

intervention is considered
networking and because amongst it evokes

good because
like-minded

it permits
art lovers, bar. late-night

relational over detached

privileges opticality: time in this other the

a group

relations

the atmosphere

of a

Tiravanija insists that the viewer is physically present

situation the food at a particular that he cooks, alongside within

In the glossary at the back of Relational aesthetics, Bourriaud proposes some criteria that we should level
at open-ended, overcome such participatory problems. He artworks suggests in order that the to criteria

in a communal some readers

situation, will

usually

already that

know,

Tiravanija

often
materials

includes the phrase

and is extremely

'lots of people'
reflecting

in his lists of
about impor the

we should engage are not simply aesthetic, but political: we must judge the 'relations' that are produced by
relational artwork, questions: dialogue? artworks. Bourriaud "does Could When suggests this work Iexist, and confronted that we permit how, questions, production, me in the by a relational ask the following to enter space we as in front into it defines?" should of

it is noticeable subjective,

the criticism

his work tance

of the

Every piece the author's

viewer's in the work. first-hand experience on Tiravanija's of writing work refers back to own experience of the piece which raises work -

the following critical and historiographical

can we judge ifwe Tiravanija's didn't or indeed

problem: how
any work that

to these (p109). He refers ask in front of any aesthetic co-existence" (p.109). could I live

which

"criteria

Theoretically, in a world

of any work by the organ

relies for itsmeaning on the direct participation of the

viewer experience also it for ourselves?

of art, we can ask what kind of social model the piece

produces: structured

ising principles of a Mondrian painting? What

To be fair, of art has this problem and accompanies art, since delegates the history relational often form', for example, is produced by a Surrealist installation this situation performance is exacerbated, approach that but with

'social
object?

the artist

a hands-off

the meaning

So far so good. But in putting this idea into practice, it is difficult to determine what constitutes the 'relations'
we are assessing. the For example, results ivtoafTiravanija cooks,

of the work documentation the offer social only

to the

viewer-participant. of relational work that emerged,

Photographic reveal little to us of and written of example, accounts the only

how and forwhom,

he gives away

is less important than the fact that

of his cooking for free.

dynamic partial

assistance.

By way

substantial account that Ican find of Tiravanija's first solo exhibition at 303 Gallery is by Jerry Saltz inArt in
America, and it runs as follows:

Inother words, although his works claim to defer meaning to their context, they do not question their imbrication within it. We need to ask, as Group Material did in the 1980s, "Who is the public? How is a culture
made, and who is it for?"

Iam not suggesting

Tiravanija's by giving ingredients. equate judgment The social on need free Iam curries

that relational artworks

a greater social to refugees,

like
conscience

between against Laclau situation: being of art. for

full

identities,

such case

as a car

crash,

or the war argue a different me from

to develop

terrorism). and Mouffe, the presence myself."

In the

of antagonism, with prevents "Other"

aesthetic the

wondering an ethico-political with relationships produced by a work judgment have innumerable such methodologies

simply

or using organic what itmeans to

"we are

confronted

of the

totally

sciences and

Idwell on this theory inorder to suggest

relations set are up by not relational intrinsically as art works democratic, Tiravanija and

that the
such as since those they of

measuring contemporary relational

evaluating art criticism

relationships, wilfully

but immune to

remains

such complexities. The quality of the relationships

art is never examined or put into question

in
by that who this

rest too comfortably within an ideal of subjectivity as

whole, community but immanent togetherness.

its critics and curators, nor is the issue of how we might

arrive at this assessment. are more them" When important Bourriaud than p.43), the argues individuals that Isense "encounters compose

There is debate and dialogue

pieces, the to be sure, there situation is 'microtopian': in common

inone of his cooking

is no inherent friction since it produces (the art world). of be seen in a community

{Postproduction,

whose members
have something

identify with each other, because

they

34

question is (for him) perhaps unnecessary. But Bourriaud is not alone in this: the problem Iam outlining readily
extends interactive that permit into the and bulk socially of contemporary works: engaged are automatically good. in this then But what context? the next art criticism all relations to be about

By contrast, democracy in the work Relational

'dialogue' and

assumed does If relational logical

I wish to argue that an understanding as a relationship can of antagonism are not discussed of two artists who aesthetics: These Santiago artists set Sierra up and Thomas

democratic 'democracy' produces

therefore mean relations,

really human

art

Hirschhorn.

'relationships'

of quite

question

to ask iswhat types of relations are being produced, for

whom, and whyl

a different order to that of Tiravanija: while they emphasise the role of dialogue and negotiation in their
art, the work the is not relations reducible produced to these by their by unease the work relationships. performances and discomfort a sustains and context. to the in 2003, which Rather,

Ipropose that one way to begin addressing

is to examine 'democracy' book Hegemony its terminology is a good place and Social more to start. Strategy: rigorously, In their Towards

this problem
and seminal a Radical

and rather tension

installations than

are marked because

belonging, viewers,

between two

participants

Democratic Politics (1985) the political philosophers Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe argue that a fully
functioning antagonisms political brought is one erased. consensus debate Laclau founded that pure and inwhich all is not one society new inwhich but one disappeared, are constantly and drawn frontiers being a democratic in other words, into debate society are sustained, not inwhich relations of conflict democratic have antagonism which there order is only a total the imposed of

To give Spanish involved blocks viewers

Sierra's examples: at the Venice Pavilion

contribution Biennale

concrete off the pavilion's interior with sealing the building, from floor to ceiling. On entering were constructed confronted yet by a hastily wall that rendered carrying to enter Visitors invited the galleries a Spanish passport, the space via the back of

impregnable inaccessible. however, were

Without

of authoritarian discussion

suppression to democracy. is

the building, where two immigration officers

inspected
entry

is inimical

were denied All non-Spanish nationals passports. contained to the gallery, interior apparently whose

and Mouffe's in a Lacanian

understanding

of antagonism

nothing but grey paint peeling from the walls,

from the exhibition two years sense, being fluid, back. but The work 'relational' idea of these in Bourriaud's relations the work are, problematised

left over
was any and social social and

subjectivity presence, we

of subjectivity. They argue theory and rational is not a self-transparent are

but

incomplete;

decentred and is irremediably have a failed structural identity, and

harmonious how all our

unconstrained; interactions legal

exposed space,

therefore dependent on identification inorder to proceed. Because subjectivity is this process of identification,
we are necessarily such incomplete entities. Antagonism, contrasts this

like public

riven with

exclusions.

therefore,
between

is the type of relationship that emerges

incomplete such and as entities. Laclau

to the types of relationship that emerge between com

plete entities, be materialists and what send contradiction horoscopes, read we (for example, or be in analysis also differs (a collision can

Christmas

cards); call

mathematicians

antagonism 'real difference'

from

second

Documenta work,

example: XI. The

Hirschhorn's Bataille three

Bataille

monument is a more

at complex shacks

It is with

this

appeal

to an art of encounter

as

activated

monument installations

wish to end this paper. Rather than being thinking that I

coerced ments, into fulfilling perhaps the artist's political it is more interactive require and provocative -

comprising a sculpture the Bataille

in makeshift

outside a housing estate

featured To reach

in the suburbs of Kassel;

and a functioning had to visitors bar.

italso

of a tree, monument,

participate ina further component of the work: securing a lift from a Turkish cab company who were contracted
to ferry Documenta were then Viewers visitors stranded to and from the site. until a at the Monument

to presuppose the viewer as a subject of independent thought, which is after all the essential prerequisite for political action. It is no longer enough to say that
activating artwork prescribes no the even viewer tout court the most what is democratic, always 'open-ended' participation may for every

in advance

and may

return cab became available, during which time they would inevitably make use of the bar. The three installations included a libraryof books and videos on
Bataillean installation themes, about a functioning Bataille's TV studio, and an life and work.

not take place within

should immersive appropriates consensus.

itSuch pretences

to emancipation

all art-whether longer be necessary: can be a critical or not force that and reassigns value, us decentralising our

thoughts from the predominant and pre-existing

The contemporary task facing art addresses today viewer, the is to analyse how and to assess

In locating the Monument in the middle of a community was whose ethnic and economic status implied that it
not a target of art tourists audience for Documenta, Hirschhorn

35

the quality of the audience relations it produces. If relational art seeks a unified subject as a prerequisite
Sierra for community-as-togetherness, a mode of artistic provide then Hirschhorn more and encounter

contrived a curious rapprochement between

and the area's residents. visitors The feel a reversed 'zoo effect', inwhich

the influx
result like was

hapless
the

intruders. Even more disruptively,

art world's intellectual

in light of

adequate to the split, divided and incomplete subject of today. This relational antagonism would be predicated
not on social is repressed and thereby and but on exposure harmony, in contriving the semblance would provide other. 1 Thomas Hirschhorn, in Jessica Morgan (ed.), Common wealth, Tate Modern, p.63 Claire is currently Bishop Leverhulme Research Fellow the department of Curating Royal College a more of that which of this and harmony,

international

pretentions, This

Hirschhorn's Monumenttook
seriously induced including as

the local inhabitants

gesture visitors, was the amongst gesture

Bataille readers. potential a range of emotive responses accusations and that patronising. Hirschhorn's This

concrete

polemical grounds for rethinking our relationship to the

world to each

inappropriate fragile

unease

revealed

conditioning

of the art world's

self-constructed

identity.The complicated
dis-identificatory mechanisms

play of identificatory and

at work in the content,

construction and location of the Bataille Monument were radically and disruptively thought-provoking: the 'zoo
effect' worked two ways. handbook the Bataille Rather Documenta commitment', claims, offering, a reflection on served than as the 'communal to

in

Monument

Art, Contemporary of Art, London. This article was

destabilise (and therefore potentially liberate) any sense of what community identity might be, or what itmeans
to be a 'fan' of art and philosophy. rather In other words, the

read as a paper

for the Art conference, Gallery, version no.110,

of the Encounter

relations established
unease and ambivalence,

by this work were marked by

than comfortable

togetherness
works Ihave

and identification. Significantly,

discussed, the viewer is no longer

in the two
required

Art Whitechapel London, May 2004. A full can be found in October, Fall 2004.

to fulfil a literal participatory role (to eat noodles, or to play the drums), but is asked only to be a thoughtful and
reflective visitor. As Hirschhorn says,

Ido not want to do an interactive work. I want to do an

active work. To me, the most important 1967, makes wall. An activity me that an

artwork can provoke is the activity of thinking. Andy

Warhol's Big is a painting electric chair, think, work but it on a museum active requires

that Ifirst give of myself.1