Recent interactions with former
art theory students have inspired me to flip open my notebook and discuss the
reading choices of artists, particularly with regard to whether or not they should be reading “critical theory.” Because I am currently taking time off from teaching I won’t assign any readings here but simply express
my thoughts on the subject and my personal belief that critical theory is
required reading for artists.
Today’s post was partially
provoked by Nicolas Bourriaud’s elegant but perplexing statement regarding
critical theory, or rather his “answer” to a single question posed to him in an
recent “interview.” In the veritable tsunami of information that washes over us
hourly, this little gem of a text could’ve been easily lost and I am grateful that
a student shared it with me. There are a few ex-students that share my passion
for theory and I’m empowered by their continued pursuit of the discourse that it
ensures with me.
Side-stepping for the moment
the mystery of why Ryder Richards, himself an artist, would ask only this one
question, what rankled most was Bourriaud’s meandering around the topic. Bourriaud
deigns not to define “critical theory” but instead begrudges us with a “yes and
no” answer. To whit:
“If the question is ‘do they
have to’ the answer is ‘no,’ obviously. You can think in very critical terms
without referring to any critical theory pre-existing to your investigations…I
read a lot of artist’s interviews and texts, so you see that the opposite can
be true also…if the question is ‘do artists need to read such-and-such’ type of
literature, the answer is definitely ‘no.’ You never know where ideas come
from.”(1)
To be fair, Nicolas did warn
us that he wasn’t sure “one can be dogmatic with this type of question.” But
certainly Nic is no stranger to dogma; his Relational Aesthetics veered very
close to a doctrine when first published in 1998, and still has some miles on
it. Highly “opinionated?” Yes, but as a theorist Nic was more than able to back
up his beliefs that objects as conveyers of meaning were passé and that the new
approach of socially enabling, community activist-artists was here to stay.
Yet Nicolas wasn’t able to
get that worked up about critical theory as a necessary evil. Perhaps Nic
sensed the confrontational taunt buried in Richards’ single question interview. It was a
challenge more than a question, really.
The closest Nic came to addressing
critical theory was when he teased Richards with this:
“Critical
theory, if it’s meant to describe a very specific type of literature – it’s
very narrow. I think the ideas come from so many different places. Critical
theory is not the critical sound that is produced in the art world.”
If
this statement was merely Nic’s superficial dismissal of his interviewer, we
might forgive and forget. After all, Richards is actually asking what is so
important about critical theory for artists. But I think that Nic was attempting
to deflect the question, by briefly alluding to the lesser important branch of
critical theory as used on literary texts. Bourriaud’s own Relational Art takes
its very germination, however, from the broader branch of critical theory espoused
by the Frankfurt School and their view that their Marxist, political philosophy
“ought” to integrate with the social sciences.(2)
And
at this moment in the “interview” an interviewer worth our time might have
jumped on that idea of “texts” and parried Nic with this:
“But
haven’t we understood – certainly informed by the work of Derrida, Barthes and
others – that artworks themselves are texts? Are you so naïve as to suggest
that the art world produces only the “sound” of critical theory instead of the
substance?”(3)
To produce these texts, our
artworks, the art experience that dear old Bourriaud championed nearly 20
years ago, one must constantly “position
yourself in front of all the other artists, then all the artists of your times,
and the critical voices of today and the past.” This is where Nic gets it right
and his view meshes with one of the Core Mantras of my pedagogy: before you make a
painting, do a performance or an installation, you need to familiarize
yourself with the theory and practice of all that has come before.
Thankfully,
you have the Internet and a smartphone; that's where most critical theory
resides now. You’ll be a better artist for it, or at least a critically
savvy one.
____________________________________________________
1. All quotes, unless
otherwise noted, are taken from Glasstire’s“The One-Question Interview: What Nicolas Bourriaud Thinks Artists Should BeReading.”
2. Bourriaud defines
Relational art 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." Relational Aesthetics, Dijon: Les
presses du réel, 2002, p. 113.
3. Certainly in this interview Richards
missed an opportunity to ask Bourriaud what he makes of Relational
Aesthetics evolving into Social Practice Art in the last two decades.
