It seems as though there shouldn't even be a question of whether or not Relational Aesthetics make sense, it just does. These articles certainly make it clearer, but when I think about it "social interventions as art" are so much a part of the art community that it is hard for me to think of a time when they were not. Traditional medium such as paint and stone did define art for many centuries, and it seems that everything that can be done with these media has been. So I completely agree that artists are now concerned not with doing something "new," but with "being relevant, of being useful, of being pertinent...," as Nicholas Bourriaud suggested. And as Karen Moss pointed out, very few of the artists used technology as a part of their exhibitions. I find this very refreshing. Just because we live in a technological age, and sos much can be done with it, doesn't necessarily mean we should utilize it for art. I understand, however, that sometimes technology does serve a very distinct purpose in art, and without it the work would not make sense. But it just seems so sterile, and even though it takes the human touch to make it work technology still feels so devoid of human contact. It lacks a personal feel, an intimacy.
This intimacy is gained when artists like Jorge Pardo put the personal books of George Pocari on display for part of the TOUCH exhibit. I love the idea of having viewers decide what this man was like from the mixture of titles he read over his life instead of coming to a conclusion based on a dry expression painted on a canvas. A similarly personal project was Gillian Wearing's Signs That Say What You Want Them to Say, Not Signs That Say What Other People Want You to Say. Allowing other people to express themselves in this way, while at the same time expressing yourself as an artist seems as though it would be far more fulfilling than what your paint and paint brushes would do in that time. (Thats just me though! and I love to paint!)
It was also interesting, and something that I had never thought about, that museums keep the same hours as government institutions, banks, and businesses. This seems utterly backwards considering that a majority of art held within museums is probably inspired by a hatred of such institutions.
Also, some of the projects done in the TOUCH exhibit would be ideas that could be considered for our class to do for Art House. Such as Gillian Wearing's polaroids, Ross's "heap of candy,"and perhaps even a version of Rikrit Tiravanija's "remnants of the experience" of a meal had by thirty people.
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