1+1 The relational years

The MAXXI Museo Nazionali delle Arti del XXI secolo is hosting the world’s first major retrospective dedicated to relational art, a term coined by French critic and curator Nicolas Bourriaud to describe a set of artistic practices based on human relationships and social context rather than on the artistic object or the artist’s private space.

Curated by Nicolas Bourriaud with Eleonora Farina, the exhibition traces the evolution of one of the most influential and innovative artistic movements of the last thirty years, from the dawn of the Internet age to the present day. At a time when most of our relationships take place through screens and digital media, it invites us to rediscover the human dimension of encounter. The exhibition is spread across Gallery 3 and various other spaces in the museum, in a layout that does not simply display the works but activates them in the space, creating a three-way relationship between the public, architecture and artistic creation. The museum thus becomes a living, permeable place where art happens and is renewed through the participation of those who pass through it.

Proximity, conviviality, micro-utopias and participatory processes are the principles that unite the research of the 45 artists on display, including Vanessa Beecroft, Maurizio Cattelan, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Carsten Höller, Pierre Huyghe, Philippe Parreno and Rirkrit Tiravanija, Angela Bulloch, Liam Gillick, Douglas Gordon, Gabriel Orozco, Santiago Sierra and Felix Gonzalez-Torres. Two works welcome visitors outside: in Piazza Alighiero Boetti, Romanian Jokes by Jens Haaning, a loudspeaker that broadcasts jokes in Romanian, and on the façade of Via Guido Reni, the casual passer-by photographed by Braco Dimitrievijc a few days before the opening for his famous series The casual Passer-by I met.

Header MAXXI, 1+1 The relational years, photo M3Studio