From: richard haden <richard_haden-AT-yahoo.com>
Date: 29 Jan 2010 03:47:56 UTC   (07:47:56 PM in author's locale)
To: Situationist <situationist-AT-lists.nothingness.org>

FM, like I said a couple of those paragraphs were copied from another blog that I posted to.

RH



________________________________
From: Free Mod <freemod-AT-free.fr>
To: Situationist <situationist-AT-lists.nothingness.org>
Sent: Thu, January 28, 2010 10:27:13 PM
Subject: Re: SI inspired ? Sehgal and Relational Aesthetics

Richard,

thanks for the post, I missed an exhibition in Milan about one year ego I guess.
As often happens with artists I barely know, I am paused in perplexity. Here are some of my reflections.

Even if the NYT article doesn't explicitly state the link to SI background the artist's reference to "constructed situations" appears obviously declared. I think that the emphasis is more on the "constructed" side of the artistic process (than on the situations as emerging, occurring possibilities) where people are simply carrying briefings and instructions and the artist still holds a leading role of director. On my opinion, I would prefer that an art form along the same lines as SI tradition had stressed the unruled and unpredictable sides of the creating situations (rather than constructing them).

Moreover, Sehgal work openly resist or refuses to obey to conventional contexts that inhere in artistic exhibition, like museums and galleries. And nowadays this attitude reads a naif way to escape to death going to Samarqand and just die there. Not to mention that his resistance seems really weak: it's quite bewildering that he shows in the Guggenheim... my god what an embarrassing... situation. In fact, I have to say, my first impression is that his work hasn't got that much of a stunning experience. Maybe 'cause I don't like museums and mainly I find the Guggenheim unendurable if not impossible.

Despite the open intention of Nicolas Bourriaud's "Esthétique Relationnelle" to go beyond the 60's art heritage, most of main artists works, like Carsten Holler, Vanessa Beecroft, Maurizio Cattelan, still are inscribed in that horizon.

Relational Art has its theoretical and practical point of departure in the whole of human relations and their social context, this is not that new thing Bourriaud had preferred to show. I don't see why this could not be said for Joseph Beuys work. Just to mention one of the greatest continental artists. I appreciate Bourriaud's work and engagement, as well as le Palais de Tokyo, I just don't see that gap with the previous artistic traditions. Internet ? C'mon, it's too late to talk about it as a revolutionary thing or a new human endeavor. I recall that in Apuleio's Metamorphoses (the Golden Ass) there a story describing an untouchable and immaterial media that pervades everything and every living beings' communication and interaction... something like the (inter)net. That was a philosophical and poetic "innovation" in relational aesthetics. Artists as Beecroft and Cattelan, and to certain extent Holler too, are less innovative and less relational than
Beuys. They are also less relational then situationists. Maybe more fashionable donc less revolutionary.

I need to sleep now, it's 4.20 am here....

One last thing, what's your name doing at the beginning of some pasted paragraphs?

>
> Richard HadenTino Sehgal is a contemporary...

> Richard HadenIn addition to the references I made above to the Situationist and Relational Aesthetics...

Best,
FM


Il giorno 29/gen/2010, alle ore 00.07, richard haden ha scritto:----
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