Xuefeng Chen and relational art

At a time when Nicolas Bourriaud put forward his theory of relational art, which arose out of his curatorial and critical involvement with artists of the 1990s, Chinese contemporary art was transforming into a global art as several prominent artists emigrated to the West. Bourriaud did not feature any Chinese artists in his Esthétique relationnelle (1998), presumably because their conceptual works did not operate in the domain of social exchanges, interactions and communicative acts, but in recent years his legacy may be detected in the works of Xuefeng Chen, a Chinese-born artist who settled in France in 2003. Focusing on the transmission of knowledge about nature and art to others, primarily children, she often involves them in the processes of production and/or reception. Does her artistic mission to connect nature, audience and personal history enable us to answer affirmatively Bourriaud's key question, ‘cette oeuvre m’autorise-t-elle au dialogue?’. To explore this idea, Chen's artistic practice and philosophy will be considered and then the key principles of Bourriaud's theory as they relate to a selection of Chen's sculptures and installations. Thirdly, the study will draw on Félix Guattari's conceptualisation of artistic practice as an ethical-political articulation between the environment, the social and subjectivity, itself mentioned by Bourriaud, to understand Chen's approach in terms of a possible ecosophy. Ultimately, this article aims to direct critical attention to a francophone Chinese artist whose works are entering the international stage and, by doing so, it will expand the, hitherto, primarily Eurocentric scope of discussions about relational art. The case study will, then, have important consequences for our understanding of Bourriaud's theory concerning its limitations in terms of applicability, adaptability, and geographical scope, thus raising questions about the international functioning of art and aesthetic theory.