Gillick and Claire Bishop Reviewed Work(S): Source: October, Vol

Home , Nicolas Bourriaud, Traffic (art exhibition)

Letters and Responses Author(s): Liam Gillick and Claire Bishop Reviewed work(s): Source: October, Vol. 115 (Winter, 2006), pp. 95-107 Published by: The MIT Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40368419 . Accessed: 17/02/2012 14:04

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http://www.jstor.org LETTERS AND RESPONSES

ContingentFactors: A Responseto Claire Bishop's "Antagonismand Relational Aesthetics"

This tensionbetween democracy and liberalismshould not be conceivedas one existingbetween two principles entirely external to each otherand establishing betweenthemselves simple relationsof negotiation.Were the tensionconceived thisway, a verysimplistic dualism would have beeninstituted. - Chantal Mouffe,The Democratic Paradox (2001)

TraceyEmin has such a visceral and directway of using language that any reviewsounds hopelesslylame bycomparison. But behinda wretchedself-image, girlishromanticism reveals a sweeterTracey. - ClaireBishop, "The SweeterSide ofTracey/' EveningStandard (May 2, 2001)

The uncriticalreinforcement ofleading market figures and theanalytical pecu- liaritiesthat remain from Claire Bishop's days as a journalistcannot be disguisedin herrecent essay "Antagonism and RelationalAesthetics" {October 110 [Fall2004], pp. 51-79).There are lucidmoments, due particularlyto herdetermination to seeka routeaway from the problems created by the increasing evacuation of criticalrela- tionshipsto societyin a cultureof politicalconsensus. However, a texthas been producedthat undermines the usuallyhigh standards of Octoberin relationto its checkingof sources, reference points, and theapplication of critical methods to con- temporarycultural discourse. These standardshave been replaced by sallow techniquesmore familiar in a right-wingtabloid newspaper.1 Up to a pointthis is understandable,since there has been a greatdeal of ratherrushed rear-guard action in Britishand Americanquarters in reactionto

1. The EveningStandard is partof Associated Newspapers Limited, where alongside the Daily Mail it hasbeen a staunchbastion against the processes of critique and progress.It is unthinkablethat anyone educatedin Englandwould consider contributing toa newspapergroup with such an appallingrecord of pro-Apartheid,pro-Thatcher, and anti-Unionpositioning, on top of a recordof Anti-Semitismin the 1930s,which has been followedup bya consistentand well-documentedxenophobia ever since, includingcurrent campaigns against so-called "asylum seekers." Other examples of Bishop's writing for theEvening Standard may be foundat www.thisislondon.co.ukand include these thoughts on thework ofRachel Whiteread: "Despite this, major aesthetic swoons are virtually guaranteed elsewhere Each workhas chokedand smotheredanother object in orderto be made,and thisdeathly process adds a psychologicalfrisson to your sensuous rush. Whiteread is rightlyacclaimed as one ofour best sculptors, and thisshow is chillyperfection for hot daysahead" (ClaireBishop, "Cool Stepsto StarStatus," EveningStandard, June 26, 2001).

the popularityand influenceof NicolasBourriaud's book RelationalAesthetics. Dealing primarilywith work produced more thanten yearsago, the book has come to renewedattention in lightof the increasingcommodification and mar- ketingof criticalart discourse. The problemwith Bourriaud's text, however, is thatwhile it has promptedboth a seriousdebate in some quarters,elsewhere it has been uncriticallyaccepted. Unfortunately, Bishop's essay does not riseto the levelof serious critique nor even-handed debate; rather than offer a detailedcon- siderationof Bourriaud'swork, it looksinstead for other targets and generatesa muddledanalysis of four established male artists in lieuof a morefocused critique ofthe ideas and implicationsoí RelationalAesthetics. The factof the matteris thatBourriaud's book has been at the centerof both carefuland criticalelucidation since the momentof its publication- the textitself was a directproduct of a specificand ongoing debate. Relational Aestheticswas the result of informal argument and disagreementamong Bourriaud and some of the artistsreferred to in his text.2Its contenthas been knownto themfor nearly a decade,and mostof thoseinvolved, including Bourriaud, have developednew reactions to the textand revisedtheir thinking since its publication. The book does contain major contradictionsand serious problemsof incompatibilitywith regard to the artistsrepeatedly listed together as exemplars ofcertain tendencies. Yet the crucial fact is thatRelational Aesthetics was written as a responseto the artistswhose work it discusses.It waspart of a processof critical distancingby the authorin orderto separatehimself from the implicated,early role he had playedas curatorof manyof the groupexhibitions in whichthese artistsmay have been involved,although notable absentees from these early pro- jects includedboth Rirkrit Tiravanija and me,both of whom are discussedin the book.The textsthat form the book came to fruitionduring and afterBourriaud's experiencewith the exhibition Traffic at the CAPC Bordeaux in 1996 (not 1993as incorrectlystated in Bishop'stext).3 The pressoffice of the Bordeauxart center, havingmisread the work,mistakenly communicated to the publicthe idea that the structuresin the exhibitionwere primarilya formof whatcan best be

2. Atthe time of Traffic,I wrote the following: "Now the question is, does theprocess of misunder- standingbegin and end withthe artistsor the institution?At thispoint, historically, it appears to residewith the idea and actionsof the curator. Not that you are wrong to bringtogether some people whoseem to sharesome similar structural approaches and interests.The problemis thatthe whole questionof the curatorial model is notbeing examined in thesame way that artists have been encouragedto look at theclassical ideas of the author and theego overthe last thirty years. It is clearthat you are willingto engagewith different values of productionthat go beyondthe substitutionof auratic documentationor structuresin placeof thetraditional auratic object, but cannot operate effectively withthese ideas when you keep coming up againstorganizational models that encourage the curator toact like an ultra-artist,even if he or shedoesn't want to" (LiamGillick, private correspondence with NicolasBourriaud, November 1996). 3. The firsttexts were published in Documentssur Vari in 1995and werenot brought together into thebook Relational Aesthetics until 1998. The exhibitionTraffic occurred in themiddle of thisprocess and wasthe moment that forced Bourriaud into a positionwhere he couldno longeroperate without defininghis position in relationto theartists with whom he wasworking. Lettersand Responses 97

describedas "interactive-baroque-conceptualism."4This left Bourriaud under attackfrom some artists who felt that their positions were more complex than that and fromthe visitors who had been thwartedin theirattempts to literally"inter- act"with almost everything in the show (duringthe openingof the exhibition manyworks were destroyed by well-meaning but overeager visitors who had been encouragedto directlyinteract with the work by the directorand the education departmentof the art center). Bourriaud found himself in a complicatedsituation in whichhe wasobliged to gathertogether and developrecent essays in orderto articulatehis position in relationto theartists, something that had seemedunnec- essaryin the formativeyears of the earlynineties when a peculiarcoalition of interestshad developedto fightthe conservative rump of the eighties art world. Bourriaudpredicted in theforeword to RelationalAesthetics: "Too oftenpeople are happydrawing up an inventoryof yesterday'sconcerns, the betterto lament thefact of not getting any answers."5 A clear-minded attack on thecomplexity and contradictionof Bourriaud'sbook has not been attemptedin Bishop's text. Instead,a setof artists has been shoehornedinto a battleabout intellectual territorythat merely compounds the problemsinherent in RelationalAesthetics. The resultis an unfortunate,tag-team face-off between the rathermelancholic avant- gardismof ThomasHirschhorn and thesomewhat exploitative reflections of the dominantculture that are reinforcedby Spaniard Santiago Sierra, pitched against myown convoluted, occasionally opaque and implodedpractice and Tiravanija's productionof sites for the examination of exchange and control(and eatingand drinkingand playingtable-football). On topof this strained confrontation itis not possibleto maskthe fact that Bishop's text is repletewith willful errors of fact and

4. The termis myown: "It is interestingto see whathappens when this kind of artistcomes up againstan institutionwhose values are rootedin a professionalizationofthe apparent openness of the late sixtiesand seventies.For a fewyears the CAPC has put on a consistentlyimpressive program gearedtowards artists like Mario Merz and LawrenceWeiner. In termsof what the place has been able tooffer these artists, the CAPC must be consideredimportant. So whywas the exhibition Traffic a rela- tivelystraightforward and problematicaffair? There are twomain reasons. One is thatthe CAPC may havethought it was a conceptualshow, albeit not as 'resolved'but certainly operating as a newform of content-fullconceptualized approach, and secondly,that by denying access to thepreproduction and postproductionaspects of the show they ensured that the defining quality of the exhibition was impro- visationand interactivityrather than the ideas that truly inform what is takingplace and are outlined above.The CAPChanded over a degreeof responsibilityto an outsidecurator (Nicolas Bourriaud), butthey still define the atmosphereof the place,both structurally and literally.Something is being workedthrough and thekey to themisreadings encouraged by a showlike Traffic are thatattempts to pindown the potential of theartists involved end up usingtwo fundamentally incorrect assumptions aboutthe work. The firstis themyth of interactivity and thesecond is theover-reliance on an idea of thereally real. Making far too much of the quasi-Duchampian tendency of recent artists to bringtem- porarilyun-art-like structures rather than the recent tendency to just bring un-art-like objects into the galleryspace. A focuson theinteractive potential of work and thestructural aspect of its arrangement closes the gap betweenwhat has been done and the mostimportant work of people likeJames Coleman,Michael Asher, and DouglasHuebler, so it is no surprisethat it leads to misreadings.The work,at worst,becomes merely a formof contentheavy baroque post-conceptualism."See Liam Gillick,"111 Tempo," Flash Art 188 ( Tune1996). 5. Bourriaud,Relational Aesthetics, p. 7. 98 OCTOBER

method.6An exampleof the latter: throughout the text Bishop extensively quotes museumguides, pamphlets, and mainstreamart criticism in relationto Tiravanija and me, as if thesereflect our ideas and ideology,yet allows developed cultural theoryand thewords of theartists to speakfor Sierra and Hirschhorn.What did thesetwo poor artistsdo to deservethis hollow victory over the supposed good- timevanguard of liberalprogressiveness? For Bishopproudly reports Hirschhorn and Sierra'sfeelings of hopelessness in theface of the dominant culture and turns theirwords into a populistassertion that "art can't change anything." In thiscase theyare being used- as theyhave oftenused working-classpeople; theyare employedto bulldozethe housesof theirrelatives, because Bishopcan't make senseof the prime suspect's (Bourriaud's) testimony. A textso fullof contentiousstatements and willfulomissions requires a detailedresponse, exposing its falsedichotomies, which have depressingconse- quencesfor anyone who might believe in thepotential of a radicalreconsideration of theconditions of productionof art.First, however, some of theerrors of fact: RelationalAesthetics was firstpublished in 1998,not 1997 as reported(p. 53); its titlein Frenchis not spelled EsthêtiqueRelationnel but Esthétiquerelationnelle (also p. 53). Throughouther text,Bishop tendsto muddleideas fromboth Relational Aestheticsand Bourriaud'slater book Post-Production. It is not true that the Palais de Tokyo"remained bare and unfinished"(p. 51). Its extensiverenovation and remodelingwas completedwithin two months of its openingdate byarchitects who installedlighting and whitewalls and all the othertrappings of a conven- tionalart space, including bookshop, café, and informationkiosks.7 Bourriaud was nota curatorat theCAPC, he simplycurated an exhibitionthere (p. 51); norwas he the editorbut an editoroí Documentssur Vart, along with Eric Troncy (p. 51). WhenBishop mentions that the Palaisde Tokyomodel has becomea paradigm she footnotesa listof institutionsand eventsthat opened beforethe Palais de Tokyo(p. 51). The listof errors is extensive- I havebarely progressed beyond the firstpage - and it continuesin thismanner page afterpage, includingthe cap- tionsto the imagesof artworks, which in mycase are swappedand incorrectly credited.While fact-checking is not the rulewithin academic journals, Bishop's errorsindicate poor standards of research on herpart.

6. Forexample, The Pinboard Project (1992) is usedto furtherBishop's arguments via a willfulmis- readingof the text that visibly accompanies each work, which could easily have been avoided by actual- lylooking at thework. The termused throughout my work is "users,"never "owners," and thisproject is preciselyabout who the public for the work might be and howculture is maderather than a private momentfor included individuals. There is no pointwhere the use ofthe work is limitedto an artaudi- ence,nor does thework lack specifically complex tensions in relationto context.At MonikaSpruth Galleryin 1992,the pinboard contained information about the rights of Romany people in contempo- raryGermany and instructionson howto become involved in a strugglefor cross-border recognition. 7. The architectsof thePalais de Tokyowere Lacatón and Vassal:"Their big break was the Palais de Tokyocontemporary art gallery in Paris,completed in 2001.The project,a barebones reclamation ofa semiderelictart deco buildingnear the Seine, was shortlisted for the Mies van der Roheprize in 2003 and has been immenselyinfluential as perhapsthe mostextreme of found-spacegalleries" (RieranLong, "Lacatón & Vassal,"Icon 20 [February2005], p. 57). Lettersand Responses 99

In his introductionto the clusterof textsin October110 thatfocus on RelationalAesthetics, George Baker claims that Bourriaud may be unawareof the historicalprecedents to the artistsmentioned in the book,even claimingthat Bourriaud"dismisses" these artists "with a sneer."He finishesby asserting that the bookand theartists associated with it emphasize"conviviality and celebration."It is not clear to whatpart of the workunder consideration in Bishop'sessay this mightapply, but it is clearthat we are goingto haveto workhard to findnew pro- gressivemodels in a textthat instead relies on melancholyand failurein artas a comfortingreinforcement of existingsocial models.To telescopeBishop's argument:an absentcritique of RelationalAesthetics is used to setup a misapplication of thenotion of antagonism in ErnestoLaclau and ChantalMouffe to twoartists (Tiravanijaand me) withoutrevealing the foundationof theseartists' works or theirideas beyondthat which has been presentedby various institutional frame- worksor mainstreamjournalists.8 These absences are compoundedby a breathless descriptionof her experienceof worksby two more artists,Hirschhorn and Sierra,both of whom are men:it seems as ifBourriaud is notthe only one whohas failedto learnthe lessonsof feministpractice and critiquefrom the seventies.9 Bothartists have clearly titillated the writer and activatedher journalistic taste for art thatsupposedly upsets or disturbsthe dominantsystem, playing on a petit- bourgeoishunger for art that either humiliates or tauntsits humanmaterial, as wellas forart conceived as an easilyexchanged conceptual singularity that can be simplydescribed and thereforepassed on to wearyinsiders in searchof some new formof amusement in theart context.10 Yet Hirschhorn and Sierraare also done a disservicein an essaythat ultimately suggests that they are involvedin a relation- shipof complicity with a dominantpower structure. This is an exampleof an essay remainingcontent to keeppointing out cartoon variations of power relationships, whilethe true complexity at theheart of our culture is allowedto mutateand con- sumerelationships regardless. Anyone who has witnessedHirschhorn's 24 Hour Foucaultat thePalais de Tokyo(yes, that Palais de Tokyo)would know that things

8. In "Right-wingPopulism: The Mistakesof theMoralistic Response" {Populism, The Render [New York:Lukas & SternbergPress, 2005]), Mouffe writes: "The roleof criticalartistic practices is notto createconsensus, but to fosterthe participationof a multiplicityof voicesin the democraticagon, therebyhelping to mobilizepassions towards democratic objectives" (p. 68). In hertext, Bishop sim- plisticallyposits Tiravanija and me in the role equivalentto the "third-way"politician against the apparentlyengaged workof Hirschhornand Sierra.Another reading of Mouffewould place Hirschhorn,Sierra, and Bishopherself in therole of the populist opportunist who overwrites the com- plexityof a trueengagement with the unresolvable tension between liberalism and democracy. 9. "... as wellas Bourriauds seemingignorance of thedirect historical precedents to hisprocla- mationsof aesthetic innovation, ranging from Fluxus to SouthAmerican artists such as LygiaClark to almostthe entire project(s) of feminist art practice in thef970s and '80s"(George Baker, "Introduction," October110 [Fall2004], p. 50). 10. Bishop'sinterest in suchwork is mirroredin herjournalism for the Evening Standard, which has also tendedto discussartists who lend themselves to easyand spectacularpassage of easily understood ideas,such as RachelWhiteread, Tracey Emin, and AndresSerrano, as opposedto artistswhere a degreeof complexity and confusionis necessaryto understandtheir work, such as SigmarPolke. See, forexample, Claire Bishop, "Rambling Doodles Fail to Impress," Evening Standard, December 18, 2000. 100 OCTOBER

are more complicatedthan theyseem.11 Things get trulyinteresting when artgoes beyonda reflectionof the rejectedchoices of the dominantculture and attempts to address the actual processesthat shape our contemporaryenvironment. This is the true nature of Mouffe'splea for a more sophisticatedunderstanding of the paradox of liberal democracy,which concerns the recognitionof the antagonism suppressedwithin consensus-based models of social democracy,not merelya simple two-wayrelationship between the existing sociopolitical model and an enlighteneddemonstration of its failings.Bishop's evidentpleasure in seeing poor people set to workby lazy artists was reinforcedin a recentissue oí Artforum,where it was revealedthat she is also a fan of a workby Francis Alys involving the use of a large number of people to move a mountain.12There appears to be a biblical aspect to her intereststhat requires further investigation elsewhere. It is not true thatso-called "relationalart" insists on use ratherthan contemplation. Bishop accompanies this claim witha revealingassertion that it is often hard to identifywho has made a specificwork. This mayalso be truefor a visitorto the National Galleryin London who is unfamiliarwith pre-twentieth-century art, but it is not a rigorouscritical statement. Another crucial earlymisreading in the text relates to artistswho have involved themselvesin the remodeling or trou- bleshootingof whatBishop describesas "amenities[in a] museum" (p. 52). Citing severalexamples, she misreadsHal Foster'searlier critique of the workof certain contemporaryartists by artificiallyseparating these "amenityworks" from the general artwork that they do, as if theyhave made themselvesavailable as interior- design consultantsin addition to theirnormal work.13In the case of the café at the WhitechapelArt Gallery,my reworkingof it during my exhibition there in 2002 was an art work that I knew would be allowed to exist beyond the normal confinesof an exhibitiontimetable; it was not some extra service performedat the requestof a curatoror director.14It was even markedas such witha wall label.15 This maybe an act open to criticismin Foster'sterms, but it is not because of any "service-orientated" aspect of the gesture. The reading room by Apolonija Sustersicmentioned in Bishop's textwas also an art work,as were all the other examples cited. Bishop's misunderstandingsmean that she will have to ignore most of Renée Green's work,along withthat of Andrea Fräser,Christian Philipp Müller,and many other contemporaryartists who have provided spaces for the perusal or considerationof detailed materialswithin exhibition structures. While 11. 24 HourFoucault was on viewat thePalais de Tokyofrom October 2-3, 2004. 12. FrancisAlys, When Faith Moves Mountains (2002), mentionedby Claire Bishop in "Remote Possibilities:A Roundtable Discussion on LandArt's Changing Terrain," Artforum 43, no. 10 (Summer 2005),p. 291. 13. Hal Foster,"The Artist as Ethnographer,"in The Return of the Real (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1996). 14. LiamGillick, The Wood Way, Whitechapel Art Gallery, May 3-Tune 23, 2002. 15. Thisuse ofnontraditional institutional spaces for or as arthas been connected to a rejectionof the historicalgendering of artspaces into hierarchical relations and an embraceof issuesof design and decorationthat are also historicallybiased in genderterms. It wouldbe instructivehere to consider thework by Maria Lind at theKunstverein München over the last few years. Lettersand Responses 101

it is convenientfor Bishop to ignorethe fact that some artists have extended the scope of the supposedlyappropriate places or arenasfor their work, it revealsa neotraditionalstance that seems ignorant of changesin artisticpractice over the lastfifteen years. Bishopmoves on to condemna numberof artistsmentioned in Relational Aestheticsfor having been involvedin variousbiennials, triennials, and manifestas overthe last ten years. This is a changethat she makes without any citation or exam- plesto backit up. Certainlyitis notthe case with my own practice, but it absolutely is the case forSierra and Hirschhorn,the twoartists upon whomshe focuses. (Thesetwo artists have arguably found their niche in internationalexhibitions, to theiradvantage, with work that relies on a largedistracted audience to generatethe rightdegree of verbalcommodity exchange around its existencewithin a larger structure.)16Regardless of thecomplex ideology behind the work, "Have you seen theblocked-up pavilion?," "Have you been to theBataille bar?" or "Haveyou seen thetattooed and humiliatedworkers?" is far easier to share than, "Have you seen the thingthat was the backdrop for the writing of a bookthat exists only in parallelto the structurehere yet attempts to decode theway ethical traces find form in the builtworld?" There is a differencebetween reading Gilles Deleuze and puttinga Deleuze book in yourwork, but we are deniedan opportunityto unravelthese implicationsand haveto settle for an approachon Bishop'spart that is tingedwith a neopopulistattack on a notionalelite and thatdraws us backinto a straightforward simplificationofMouffe's argumentation. Mouffe has carefully outlined a usefulcri- tique of the irresolvabletensions inherent in Westernconstructions of liberal democracy.While it is temptingto tryto layera broadoutline of her ideas onto artistsengaged in contemporarypractice, the artists chosen by Bishop fail to be use- fulsubjects in thisinstance. All are moreor lessworking in a traditionof individual productionand receptionthat is presentedwithin an establishedart context. Mouffeis not callingfor more friction within some of the structuresproposed withinsuch a context,but is elaboratingan argumentagainst the kindof social structuringthat would produce a recognizableart "world"in the firstplace. Therefore,it is a misreadingof Mouffe'sideas to attemptto applythis specific critique of social and politicalrelations to marginallydifferent approaches to engagingwith the multiple participant/ audiences for contemporary art. Mouffe's argumentsare fora newsocial model,in additionto a modificationof appear- ancesand behaviorswithin the existing social framework. Whether one presentsa readingarea relatedto Bataille,a socialspace forthe exchangeof ideas and tea, or a designatedzone forthe considerationof the implicationsof momentsof exchangewithin urban society, all of thesegestures outline new approaches to

16. I havetaken part in DocumentaXand performedan advisoryrole in "UtopiaStation" during the VeniceBiennale in 2003. This shouldbe contrastedwith Hirschhorn and Sierra'scentral role in Documentaand a nationalpavilion during the Venice Biennale. I do notthink that their presence in theselarge international exhibitions inherently corrupts or underminestheir work any more than it mightdo thesame to Tiravanija's or mywork, and vice versa. 102 OCTOBER

addressingthe suppressionof meaningfulexchange in a consensusculture. There is more in common among the subjects of Bishop's textthan she is prepared to reveal. The implication that Hirschhorn and Sierra upset more people than Tiravanija and I do does not mean that they are closer to Mouffe's notion of antagonism;rather, all fourof us are, at best, engaged in an ongoing sequence of argumentsin relationto one anotherand the broader culturethat, when takenas a whole,is a limitedyet effective demonstration of the potentialof a new recognition of tensionswithin established models of social relations. The section of Bishop's essay on Tiravanija is full of spurious statements. The commentthat food and trashbecame the workat 303 Galleryin New Yorkin 1992 again misunderstandsthe structureof the workitself. The whole situation was the work,not one element of it that Bishop has substitutedin a desperate search for a proxyobject of contemplation.She has been taughtto reject such a substituteauratic object, yetshe returnsagain and again to a desperatesearch for the singularauratic signifierto covet and assess in the manner of an enlightened collectorin search of a "souvenir"to retain fromthe workof an interestingand sociallyconscious artist.Quoting Udo Kittleman'swriting on Tiravanija'sexhibition Untitled(Tomorroiu is Another Day) (1996), is also problematicas the former's opinions are part of a typicalgallery director's foreword and not particularlywor- thyof quotation. Nor is the followingstatement about Hirschhorn from the prefaceto his exhibitioncatalog fora showat the CAC Malaga in 2001 particularly noteworthy:"The materialsused - cardboard, tinfoil,plastic, books, and wood, amongstothers - show the enormouspossibilities that recycling has in contempo- raryart."17 Such statementsare typicalin exhibition catalog forewords,and a seriousjournal should not reproduce them withoutqualification unless another agenda is at work.The concurrentissue raised about the embrace of Tiravanija himselfas a commodityis based on bogus projection.He is neitherunique in nor does he lack a contextfor his stresson the implicatedrole of the artistin relation to her or his work.This revealingof one's self withinthe work is an important legacy of postcolonial and feministdiscourses that deemphasize and exaggerate the historicalconstruction of artisticpersona. The fact that Bishop is seemingly unfamiliarwith the manyartists who traveland involvethemselves in the manifes- tationsof theirwork does not mean thatTiravanija is implicatedin the same kinds of processesgoing on in Starbucksor withjob outsourcing.Bishop has misapplied Mouffe'svisionless construction of agonisticsocial binarism,overstating its potential and therebyrendering Hirschhorn and Sierra too democraticand Tiravanija and me too neoliberal. When Bishop turnsto my own work,chronology and concepts collapse or disappear.She initiallylists a numberof activitiesthat she claims I am involvedin fromsculpture to writingnovellas, yet these latter,supposedly secondary activities

17. Franciscode la TorrePrados, "Introductory Text," in ThomasHirschhorn, United Nations Miniature,exh. cat. (Malaga,Spain: CAC Malaga, 2001), p. 71. Lettersand Responses 103

actuallymake up myartistic practice. When she does mention a book, ErasmusIs Late,she calls it a "publication,"leaving the reader to believe it could be anything froma pamphletto a catalog.18It was in facta book thatoperated in parallel to a numberof exhibitionstructures in the early1990s around the time thatthe ideas behind RelationalAesthetics were coming together.The textis about the corrupted legacyof the Enlightenment,as well as the implicationsraised by the lack of a revolution in Britainin the late eighteenthcentury. The narrativedevelops byway of a conversation between a number of characters including Masaru Ibuka, the cofounderof Sony,and ErasmusDarwin, the older brotherof Charles Darwin.It is strange and disingenuous at best to suggest thereforethat my work deals with abstractionssuch as "context,""compromise," or "open-endedness"as its subject. These are not the subjects of this work,but the prevalentconditions in society thatare exposed and critiquedthrough some of the projectsof objects,texts, and other activitiesthat relate to a later book titled DiscussionIsland/Big Conference Centrefrom 1997. 19 This too is not a book about open-endednessor compromise; it is a critique of these things,which would be clear if she had once mentioned this book or the other specificwritings that occupy a crucial role in my artistic practice.20The art work related to the textDiscussion Island formeda backdrop thatallowed the book to be developed, hence the "DiscussionPlatforms" from the late 1990s that projected a specific site for consideration of the specific ideas involved.All thisbuilt towarda textthat was subsequentlymade available forfree or in the formof the cheap book during the exhibition.There is nothingvague or open-ended about such a functionof artin relationto the productionof ideas. Her bafflementabout the territorythat the work addresses is puzzling,as she knowsthat it has circledaround these keytexts. Also absentis any referenceto McNamara(1992), whichinvestigated the compromisesand errorsof U.S. foreign policyin the sixties,and LiterallyNo Place (2002), a textthat sought new waysto go beyond the stiflingneoliberalism of the present (the victoryof speculation over planning) and to findethical tracesin the builtworld thatsurrounds us.21 These books carryprecise and clear ideas and structureswithin them, operate in parallel to other structuresin an art context,and are revealed throughtitles, wall texts, and other formsof informationthat ought to have rendered Bishop's confusion impossible.Literally No Placewas published and freelyavailable during the exhibition The WoodWay at the Whitechapel Gallery in 2002, which could not have

18. Liam Gillick,Erasmus Is Late (London: Book Works,1995). 19. Liam Gillick,Discussion Island/Big Conference Centre (Ludwigsburg: Kunstverein Ludwigsburg; Derry:Orchard Gallery,1997). 20. This is a confusionand an absence thatseems to have evaded otherwriters about the workwho have oftentended to make the opposite mistake,overdetermining the textin relationto the other production. Other relevantand central textsinclude: UndergroundMan byGabriel Tarde, updated by Liam Gillick (Brussels: Les Maitres des Forme; Dijon: Les presses du reel, 2004); and "LookingBackward 2000-1887," by Edward Bellamy,with a cover design by Matthew Brannon (Leipzig: Galerie für ZeitgenössischeKunst, 1998). All of these publicationshave led to specificexhibition structures. 21. Liam Gillick,McNamara (Cologne: Galerie EstherSchipper, 1992). Liam Gillick,Literally No Place (London: Book Works,2002). 104 OCTOBER

evadedher attention. While it is hardto imaginethat Bishop is unawareof these texts,it is quite clear thattheir existence would make the taskof goingafter Bourriaudmuch more difficult using the techniquesthat she has resortedto in theessay, so theyhave simply disappeared. Ifone acceptsthe existence of a decadeor moreof writing that exists in parallel to physicalobjects and othermanifestations ofideas, it is impossibleto state, as Bishopdoes in heressay, that "[Gillick's] entire output is governedby the idea of 'scenariothinking'" (p. 61). Proceedingto admitthat she doesn'tunderstand the writings,she goes on to saythat they are nonspecific,whereas any cursory readingwill reveal extremely precise references, situations, and statements.22The earliermisreading of intentin relationto the bar at theWhitechapel Gallery is repeatedin relationto projectsof minein Brusselsand Stuttgart.Both were invi- tationsto produceart for specific urban contexts. In each case thecommissioning culturalbody was the cityand state.Neither case involved"troubleshooting" (p. 61) anything,but instead the expectation was that I wouldpropose an artwork. If Bishopor theeditors had caredto checkthe text they would have discovered that myresponse in bothsituations was extremely specific and pointedin relationto contemporaryurban conditions. In BrusselsI used theavailable budget to reno- vateand improvethe foyersof the oldestpublic housing unit in the cityon the conditionthat it not be consideredan artwork. This was not the desireof the FoundationRoi Baudouin,which would have preferred a discrete art object, and I spentmy entire fee on ensuringthat the building got its foyers against the wishes of the commissioningbody.23 In StuttgartI collaborated with a NewYork-based collectiveof architects(Open Office)in orderto ensurethat a plaza closeto the Porscheheadquarters could not be claimedas an extensionof Porsche'scorpo- rateidentity via theiroccupation of thespace withtheir own "improvements" to thearea. My proposal was rejected in favorof work by an artistwho restricted her- selfto thesurface of thestreet. This allowed Porsche to go ahead and occupythe formerpublic space of the remainingplaza. These are crucialand extraordinary errorsin Bishop'stext that change the meaning and directionof theentire argument.They cannot be allowedto standwithout reply and correction.Bishop followsthem by the repeated statement that the middle ground and compromise are whatinterest me most,which is trueof one aspectof the work related to a spe- cificcritique of urbandevelopment processes in a post-utopianenvironment in the book DiscussionIsland/Big Conference Centre, but not of the otherwork that has been producedbefore or since. One could go on. It is hardlya pleasantbusiness, but the essay'sshoddy "method"and reactionaryclaims need to be countered.Using newspaper critic Jerry Saltz'simpressions of Tiravanija's exhibition at 303 Galleryis nevermatched by simi- larjournalistic acounts of thework of Hirschhornand Sierra,of which there is a

22. For example, the establishmentof commune structuresin postwarAmerica in LiterallyNo Place and the onsoinerDrivatization of the Dublicsohere in DiscussionIsland/ Bíp ConferenceCentre. 23. The Foundation Roi Baudouin is a state-runcultural funding body in Belgium. Lettersand Responses 105

greatdeal.24 Saltz's impressions tell us almostnothing about Tiravanija'swork and a lot about Saltz.When Bishop asksof Tiravanija'sexhibition at the Köln Kunstverein, "Who is the 'everyone'here?" (p. 68), it is quite obviouslyanyone who wantsto walk throughthe open doors intothe freeexhibition. In a footnotewhere Saltz is quoted yetagain - stating,"What would the WalkerArt Center do ifa certainhomeless man scrapedup the price of admissionto the museumand chose to sleep on Tiravanija's cot all day,every day?" - thereis no attemptto remindthe readerthat museums and artcenters in Europe are oftenfree, therefore rendering Saltz's anxiety about audience and admissionsomewhat provincial. The question "Is it art?"is a standardof Britishjournalism and Bishop continuesthat patronizing tradition by continuing to parrotit (p. 68). On myvisit, late at night,to Tiravanija'sexhibition, I came across exactlythe kind of diversegroup of local people thatshe claimsto be excluded by the purviewof the project.The workwas used by locals as a venue,a place to hang out and somewhereto sleep. I doubtthat she wasever there. When Bishop returns to my work, we are once more faced with poor research and a lazy approach. Her analysisof the DiscussionPlatforms (p. 69), a workthat refersto extremelyspecific ideas about how planning and speculation mightfind form in a consensusenvironment, is breathtaking.The potentialnarra- tivesthat she suggests"may or may not emerge" (p. 69) clearlydo emerge in the books. I do not argue for compromise and negotiation as recipes for improve- ment; I take a strongcritical position againstsuch conditions.25So much for the - workas a "demonstrationof compromise"(p. 69) it is an articulationof social conditionswith an accompanyingcritique. The only compromisehere has been Bishop's superficialreading of the work.Similarly, we knowthat Bourriaud's book, Tiravanija'swork, and myown projectsare not based on the assumptionthat dialogue is in and of itself democratic. But we are forced to sit through an explanationof whythis wouldn't be good enough ifit were true,a problem thatis compounded in the new Täte publication InstallationArt, which recycles the Octobertext with the same mistakes.The call-and-responsenature of the statement "But does the fact that the work of Sierra and Hirschhorndemonstrates better democracymake it betterart? For manycritics, the answerwould be obvious: of course it does!" (p. 77) is not a serious criticalstatement. The misleadingand par- tial account Tiravanija'sand mywork within the essaydoes not allow the reader or critic to come to any such conclusion. The statementthat "The feel-goodposi- tions adopted by Tiravanijaand Gillickare reflectedin theirubiquitous presence

24. Good examplesare easyto findin relationto Hirschhorn's project Swiss-Swiss Democracy at the CentreCulturel Suisse de Parisin 2004,which generated a greatdeal ofangst in theSwiss press com- binedwith complete misreadings in mostof the mainstreamart press. Sierra's exhibitions regularly provokea mixtureof tabloidoverreaction combined with earnest attempts to extricatehim from the clutchesof nihilistic libertarians who tend to fail in thesame way. 25. "Ifyou are nothappy with the way things are thenthe options are no longerclear. Ironic non- beliefis an acceptedstance now, so wheredo youlook to foraction? One optionis to tryand address thevast central area thatincludes bureaucracy, compromise, conciliation and so on. Notto illustrate thosethings but to address them" (Gillick, Discussion Island/Big Conference Centre, p. 13). 106 OCTOBER

on theinternational art scene" (p. 79) is surelynot a comparativecritical criteria whencontrasting our practicewith that of Hirschhornand Sierra.It is also a flawedvalue judgement that is skewedby muddled and partialexamples of our practice.There are no "partialidentifications open to constantflux" in thework of Hirschhornor Sierra;their work relies on a simple-mindedunderstanding of socialrelations that, ironically, has been accidentallyundermined and exposedby Bishopin thiswayward essay. Despite all of Bishop's claims of good times and open-endednessin Tiravanija'sand mywork, it is soberingto note the coverimage of the English translationof RelationalAesthetics. A woman sits alone in a simplyfurnished room in an artcenter in themiddle of France.The place has a freeentry policy and is situatedby a busymarket square.26 The womansits quietly reading; no party,free food,or good timesare on show.It wouldhave been usefulif Claire Bishop had done a littlebit of the same beforeembarking on such a depressingtext that leavesBourriaud's complex and seriousbook to floatfree from serious critique. In Cologneduring the early 1990s - wellbefore the publication of Relational Aesthetics- a tension could be perceivedbetween those artists who advocated trans- parencywithin art (Andrea Fräser, Clegg and Guttman,and othersassociated with GalerieChristian Nagel) and thosewho believed that a sequenceof veils and mean- deringsmight be necessaryto combatthe chaoticebb and flowof capitalism (PhilippeParreno, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, and othersassociated with Galerie EstherSchipper). It is notablethat those who were skeptical about the notionof transparencyand a straightforwardrelationship between intentions and results tendedto be frombackgrounds where a beliefin transparencywas historically one imposedby the dominant culture. In herplea fora moreobvious and directexpo- sureof an artist'srelationships with the dominant social framework, Bishop plays into thehands of those forces in theculture that would rather control and containcom- plexityand critique,a didacticposition that has been consistentlyrejected by the artistsof Cuban, Algerian,Irish, and Thai heritageunder considerationin Bourriaud'sbooks. This is a groupwhose complex and dividedfamily histories have taughtthem to becomeskeptical shape-shifters in relation to thedominant culture in orderto retain,rather than merely represent, the notion of a criticalposition. - LiamGillick

26. The photographdocuments Tiravanija's Untitled (One Revolution per Minute), Le Consortium, Dijon,in 1996. Lettersand Responses 107

Claire Bishop Responds:

WhenLiam Gillick told me he wishedto write a replyto my essay, I encouraged himon theassumption that it wouldgive further intellectual focus to thedebate aboutrelational art. It's a pitythat he has usedthis opportunity to respondrhetori- callyrather than theoretically. While there are importantfactual corrections in his response,for which I am grateful,they do notaddress the theoreticalbasis of my argument. To recap:my essay drew on thework of Gillick,Rirkrit Tiravanija, Thomas Hirschhorn,and SantiagoSierra to mobilizea critiqueof Nicolas Bourriaud's claim thatrelational art is a politicizedmode of artisticpractice. It soughtto finda new methodfor evaluating "political art" - namely,by considering the role and experienceof the viewers. Steering focus away from authorial intention to takeaccount of audiencereception is appropriategiven relational art's emphasis on collaboration, dialogue,and spectatoractivation. The essayalso triedto introducethe term "view- ing experience"as a wayto pressurethe oppositionof politicalcontent versus politicizedform. To theseends my discussion of all fourartists was strategic and I apologizeif it offendedthem. Moreover - andcounter to the dominant reception of this essay - my accountsof theseartists do notconstitute a final judgment on theirpractices. On morethan one occasion,Hirschhorn has producedformulaic installations, while Tiravanija's"relational retrospective" at the Boijmans van Beuningenin Rotterdam (2005) wasexemplary in itsintelligence and concision.Some of Sierra's gestures do vergeon sensationalism,in contrast to whichGillick's installations that interplay dif- ferentmediums (text, photography, glitter, and Plexiglas)are appealinglyfugitive andenigmatic. Rather than suggesting that the only good art is politicalart, the essay wasmoving toward what I understandRosalind Krauss to meanby "recursivity" (i.e., a structurein whichsome of the elements of a workproduce the rules that generate thestructure itself). In otherwords, it is notfor the reference to Georges Bataille that I am interestedin Hirschhorn's Bataille Monument, but for the way in which this work constructsa set of positions for the viewer whose presence activates both the work's ostensiblereferences and addresses the conventions of experiencing socially interac- tiveart (e.g., byforegrounding the inevitabilityof a disjunctionbetween initial participantsand subsequent viewers). Muchwork remains to be undertakenin relationto thecritical and historical statusof relational practices in the 1990s.Gillick could have contributed to thisdis- cussionby contesting my argument on theoreticaland methodologicalgrounds, for exampleby elaborating his commitment toDeleuze. Integral to thisdiscussion would be a considerationof how Deleuze 's vitalistunderstanding of rhizomaticdifference, freedfrom the limits of constituentrelations between the differed, might be har- nessedtoward a progressivepolitical art. Equally pressing is the currentstatus of fictionand opacityas a politicizedaesthetic for Gillick's generation (including Huyghe,Parreno, Gonzales-Foerster, and others).It is in thesedirections that I hope topush future debate.