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A RT T E R M
Art & artists  Art Terms  R  Relational aesthetics

R E L AT I O N A L A E ST H E T I C S
Term created by curator Nicholas Bourriaud in the 1990s to describe the tendency to make
art based on, or inspired by, human relations and their social context

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Philippe Parreno
6.00 PM 2000–6
Tate
© Philippe Parreno, courtesy Esther Schipper, Berlin

The French curator Nicholas Bourriaud published a book called Relational Aesthetics in 1998
in which he defined the term as:

A set of artistic practices which take as their theoretical and practical point of departure the
whole of human relations and their social context, rather than an independent and private
space

He saw artists as facilitators rather than makers and regarded art as information exchanged
between the artist and the viewers. The artist, in this sense, gives audiences access to power
and the means to change the world.

Bourriaud cited the art of Gillian Wearing, Philippe Parreno, Douglas Gordon and Liam Gillick
as artists who work to this agenda.

R E L AT E D T E R M S A N D CO N C E PTS
Altermodern
Altermodern is a term coined by curator Nicolas Bourriaud in 2009, to describe art made
as a reaction against standardisation …
Interactive art
Interactive art describes art that relies on the participation of a spectator

E X P LO R E T H I S T E R M
Awkward Relations
Neil Mulholland

This paper focuses on practices that captured critical and curatorial attention in Scotland
and England at the turn of this …
Art of Interaction: A Theoretical Examination of Carsten Höller’s
Test Site
Mark Windsor

This paper looks at the interactivity of Carsten Höller’s Test Site 2006, using Alfred Gell’s
Art and Agency (1998) and …
 S E L EC T E D A RT I STS I N T H E CO L L EC T I O N

Philip
born 19

Liam Gillick
born 1964

Gillian Wearing CBE

born 1963