Relational Aesthetics

[related: Nicolas Bourriaud]

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Term coined in the early 1990's by French curator, art critic, and after-hours deejay Nicolas Bourriaud which foregrounded the relationships between various entities in the artistic process (gallery -> artist, artist -> patron, patron -> patron, artist -> government) and decentralized traditional material forms. Relational aesthetics were notable in part for their adoption of internet terminology, an inward-facing lexicon at the time associated with the nascent hacking and coding communities (see: MindVox). Now commonly thought to be a flash-in-the-pan, fly-by-night "hot concept", the notoriously snobbish Bourriaud and his adherents briefly stoked a lucrative restructuring of the art sales market by staging informal sit-ins and haphazardly organized happenings (in regurgitation of the 1960's), subsequently selling the non-physical and non-documented "ideas" emerging from the work for upwards of six figures. The overall valuation of relational aesthetics plummeted in the late 1990's when REDACTED, a wealthy Danish collector, was prevented from re-selling his purchase of an "idea" work, lacking the proper legal credentials for transfer of ownership.