La muette parle
Ceci est L’imperfection de l’art
Ce language obscur
--Paul Eluard
[my English version:]
The mute speaks
This is the imperfection of art
This obscure language
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A Chinese version of Eluard's little poem is on the sign in this photo of Anne Cecile Desjardi. Her art project was to hold this sign on busy streets in Taipei while waiting for passersby to ask her questions or interact with her, despite the barriers of translation and nationality. On the other side of her sign is another French quote rendered into Chinese. But this well-known quote was detourned or altered as: "I shop, therefore I am."
While of course most people rushed by and avoided the artist, a few actually did stop and enter into a discussion with her -- sometimes even a longer discussion that moved on to a cafe. This latter aspect of her street performance is why I connected it to Bourriaud's "relational aesthetics".
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