Aesthetics and collective creation. On architectureʼs role in the social space of contemporary art centres and museums

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Abstract

When Lacaton & Vassal created the first phase of transforming the Palais de Tokyo in Paris into a center for centemporary creation (2001), they envisioned how activities and interactions could unfold in the already existing building. In the second phase of the project (2012), they created new possibilities for relations and differentiated movement patterns to further transform the potentials of visitorʼs interactions with each other and with works of art.
Lacaton & Vassalʼs relational, bottom-up architecture resonated well with the aesthetic thinking by one of the initial directors of the Palais de Tokyo, Nicolas Bourriaud (Bourriaud:1998) and now, the art centre stands as place where a cultural institution, an architectural mode of thinking and participatory artistic experiments work together. Recently, is has become of increasing interest to art museums to be relational and socially aware in order to reach new audiences (Louvre-Lens, 2012) or to develop the museum practice through participations (BMW Guggenheim, 2011-2013). The Louvre-Lens is built in a former coal mining area in Northern France with the aim of contributing to a different cultural identity and the architecture by SANAA relates to the site by adapting to the movement of the mining landscape and by being (explicitly) anti-monumental. Inside, the museum invites the visitors to co-create the exhibition experience by combining the use of digital guides with the affective tonings of the museum space in a setting that reactualises the experimental exhibition space designed by Lina Bo Bardi for Museu de Arte de Sao Paulo (1968). These aspects of the practice of museums and art centres, where social change, creation and exhibition experience affect each other raise the question of how (social) change is related to aesthetics. The paper will discuss how relational and interactive aspects of architecture can relate to the social practice of museums and art centres as being part of the ever transforming sensible fabric, termed ʼAisthesisʼ by Jacques Rancière (Rancière: 2013) and a politics of aesthetics (Rancière: 2004).
Original languageEnglish
Publication date2013
Publication statusPublished - 2013
EventRETHINK PARTICIPATORY CULTURAL CITIZENSHIP - Aarhus University and Aarhus 2017, Aarhus, Denmark
Duration: 14 Nov 201316 Nov 2013

Conference

ConferenceRETHINK PARTICIPATORY CULTURAL CITIZENSHIP
LocationAarhus University and Aarhus 2017
Country/TerritoryDenmark
CityAarhus
Period14/11/201316/11/2013

Artistic research

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