I took this photo walking through the design district of Miami. My sister and I were there pitching a television series and on our off time we went searching for good food and art. We found both. After dinner we walked past this piece by artist Rirkrit Tiravanija who was inspired by a line from the Nirvana song “Dumb.”
Tiravanija is considered by some to be the doyen of relational aesthetics. He says of art that "it is not what you see that is important but what takes place between people." One curator describes Tiravanija’s work as “real-time experiences that break down the barriers between the object and the spectator.” It is that breaking down of barriers — the interconnection of art object and audience, of teacher and student, of reader and text — that resonates for me. It’s probably why I keep coming back to this picture in my camera roll. And seeing as I’ve written a whole book on relational teaching I’ve decided this artist and I should really be friends!
I remember exactly where I was when I learned of Nirvana front man Kurt Cobain’s death. In grade nine my locker was in the visual art hallway of Etobicoke School of the Arts. I was a music theatre major (who hated dancing and really just wanted to be a jazz singer) but spent a lot of time in that hallway with moody painters and one boy who stippled me a portrait of Phil Collins. I passed a grief stricken Tammy on the way to my locker. She was sobbing, pushing her way into a photography darkroom to find her best friend.
“You ok?” I asked.
“He’s gone!” she cried.
“Who?”
“Kurt! Kurt Cobain!”
She was inconsolable and I wasn’t the comforting shoulder she was looking for. To be honest it took me a second to even place his name…and when I finally clued into who she was talking about I didn’t feel sad. I mean it was sad that someone had died but I wasn’t connected to him through his music the way Tammy was. I mean (old soul that I was!) I was listening to Tracy Chapman and James Taylor while peers like Tammy were emoting with Nirvana’s help. And yet, because she shared that sadness with me to this day I have a by proxy memory of Cobain’s passing. What would Tiravanija say about that? Was some sort of barrier broken down in that moment?
That experience in grade nine was one of my first with relational aesthetics. A moment in time where art and emotion intersected. Where someone else’s pain taught me something about someone else beyond myself. Tiravanija was also affected by Cobain’s music enough to make this piece back in 2005. When Tiravanija says, “It is not what you see that is important but what takes place between people” is he talking about Tammy and me? Cobain and me? The lit up lyric…and me? Or is what he means by relational aesthetics this: to move beyond the song and focus on the moment in which I came across the illuminated piece in the first place? Walking with my sister, reveling in the warmth of baked clams, crusty bread and the ongoing work of creative ventures to come.
The sun is gone but we have the light.