2. Relational (aesthetics)
Aesthetic theory consisting in judging artworks on the basis of the inter-human
relations which they represent, produce or prompt.
Relational (art)
A set of artistic practices which take as their theoretical and practical point of
departure the whole of human relations and their social contexts, rather than
an independent and private space.
3. FROM MASS ORNAMENT TO THE Encounters in the Socialverse: Community and Collaborative Art Practices
MASSES: THE SHIFT FROM
RELATIONAL AESTHETICS TO
SOCIAL AND PUBLIC PRACTICE
Developments in Relational Aesthetics
Images left to right: Rirkrit Tiravanija, Exhibition View,
Secession, 2002. Harrell Fletcher, Lawn Sculptures.
Portland, Oregon, 2002.
6. Top left and right, installation views of Rirkrit Tiravanija's 'Untitled 1992 (Free)' (re-created 2007).
Above left and right, installation views of 'Untitled 1992 (Free)' and a re-creation of Gordon Matta-Clark's
1972 piece 'Open House' (2007), all at David Zwirner Gallery.
(Photo: Clockwise from bottom right, courtesy of David Zwirner/Gavin Brown's Enterprise and
Ron Amstutz/David Zwirner/Gavin Brown's Enterprise)
14. Social Practices
Overview: The Field of Social Practices
Social practices incorporates art strategies as diverse as urban interventions, utopian
proposals, guerrilla architecture, "new genre" public art, social sculpture, project-based
community practice, interactive media, service dispersals, and street performance. The
field focuses on topics such as aesthetics, ethics, collaboration, persona, media strategies,
and social activism, issues that are central to artworks and projects that cross into public
and social spheres. These varied forms of public strategy are linked critically through
theories of relational art, social formation, pluralism, and democracy. Artists working within
these modalities either choose to co-create their work with a specific audience or propose
critical interventions within existing social systems that inspire debate or catalyze social
exchange.
15.
16. Social practice starts and ends not in rarified spaces, but out in the
world, although there are intersections with studios/galleries when
necessary or appropriate. Social practice is not restricted to any
medium, but instead uses various forms, methods, and approaches as the
situation dictates; any combination of media might be used in the
creation of a project. Sometimes social practice might look more like
sociology, anthropology, social work, journalism, community outreach,
or environmentalism than art, yet it retains the original intention of
creating significance, engagement, and/or accountability between the
audience and artist more than conventional art does.
There are as many possible projects as there are people and life
situations to work with. In some ways a social practice artist is a
documentarian with agency. Instead of recording what is happening in
the world, the social practice artist is also affecting the world,
setting things in motion, fostering connections between people, and
organizing everyday life so that it can be seen as engaging and
meaningful. In this way the artist becomes engaged on a new level with
the artist's target audience as well as issues related to life.
The new Art and Social Practice MFA at Portland State University is a
two year program that will educate and activate students to develop
and utilize their artistic skills to engage in society and transcend
traditional studio art paradigms. Students will learn about a variety
of working artists and non-artists who have engaged in civic activity,
and will apply their knowledge and abilities to initiate, develop, and
complete projects with the public - individuals, groups, and
institutions. Collaboration is highly encouraged.
-Harrell Fletcher
17. Graduate Public Practice
The program, under the leadership of Suzanne Lacy, the renowned artist, educator,
theorist of socially engaged public art and author of the influential Mapping the Terrain:
New Genre Public Art, enriches an arts environment marked by a remarkable mix of art
schools and a distinguished history of artistic innovation.
Current students are working on a project in California's San Joaquin Valley, centered
in Laton. The project is supported by a planning grant from the Ford Foundation, and
focuses on the environment (some of the worst air quality nationally), the poverty
(some of the highest poverty and school drop-out rates nationally), the economics of
food production (especially vis-a-vis ever-increasing energy prices), and the loss of
farmland (which also impacts housing).
18. Students from the PSU Social Practice program, Otis Public Practice and CCA Social Practice participating
at a panel at the SFMoMA title Social Practice West.
20. Harrell Fletcher
Street Selections
2003
The Drawing Center
New York, NY
A xerox publication called The Report. It is a template filled with dictated notes and drawings from
conversations Fletcher had with various interesting individuals. Each issue focuses on one person.
For the Drawing Center show he exhibited fifteen issues that were then reproduced and gave out
for free in both the gallery and in five neighborhood locations.
21. Otis College Public Practice
San Joaquin Valley Intitiative
Led by Suzanne Lacey
2009
22. There is No Two Without Three
2008
Published by the Social Practice MFA concentration
at the California College of the Arts
