Critique of relational aesthetics and a poststructural argument for thingly representational art

Abstract

Although relational aesthetics fulfills many poststructural criteria, I have identified three respects in which it does not. All are concerned with the preference of relational aesthetics for unscripted, participatory performance and the concomitant implosion of distinctions between art and life. More specifically, relational aesthetics eschews artistic thingness, capturing and preserving through reproductive technologies and artistic mimesis. Poststructuralism, by contrast, offers a strong argument for the continuing relevance of a thingly representational art which upholds, but complicates, straightforward distinctions between art and life. In conclusion, I suggest that we celebrate and not denigrate the differences between art and life, and that this holds in particular for those who side with creativity and the new.

Keywords

• aesthetics
• capturing
• metaphor
• mimesis
• poststructuralism
• relational aesthetics
• representation
• thingness