John James Marshall thesis.pdf - OpenAIR @ RGU - Robert Gordon ...

explores the work of artists 39 acting as designers and does not consider the
reciprocal view of designers making works of art.
Conversely, in the paper ‘Art in the Context of Design/Design in the Context of
Art’ - Troels Degn Johansson (2006) sets out to examine the practices of artists
and designers reciprocally operating across this disciplinary distinction.
Johansson makes use of the Copenhagen-based art collective Superflex and
points to their nomination for a design award for their development of a soft
drink brand (Guaraná Power!) as an example of art in the context of design.
This project was supposed to grow an alternative market for guarana bean
farmers in the central Amazon region after a drinks producer made prices on
guarana beans crash because of their monopoly of the market. Johansson
points to the project ‘The Directorate’ by another Copenhagen-based group
RACA as an example of design in the context of art. This project involved green
pillows (two hundred produced by RACA) marked with a logo (that resembled
The City of Copenhagen’s municipal logo) being placed on public benches by the
designers dressed as municipal workers. These benches were cleaned and
stolen pillows replaced twice a day for a fortnight.
Johansson asks why artists, designers, critics and theorists maintain, develop,
or reject the traditional distinctions between art and design. He indicates a
reoccurrence of avant-garde tactics among artists emerging the mid-1990s
onwards and cites Nicolas Bourriaud's ‘Relational Aesthetics’ (coined in 1996)
as a means of understanding the work produced by artists and designers whose
work is concerned with political and social matters.
“Relational aesthetics is a theory of aesthetics in which artworks are
judged based upon the inter-human relations which they represent,
produce, or prompt.” (Bourriaud, 2002, p.112)
Johansson refers to this ethos as the ‘relational avant-garde’. He indicates the
39 Richard Artschwager, Barbara Bloom, Scott Burton, John Chamberlain, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Dan Flavin, Bryan
Hunt, Donald Judd, Sol Lewitt, Jorge Pardo, Tom Sachs, Joel Shapiro, Rosemarie Trockel, James Turrell, Richard
Tuttle, Franz West, Rachel Whiteread and Robert Wilson.
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