Anne Popiel

Brian Priest�s Presto in light of Nicholas Bourriaud’s Relational Aesthetics

While still a student at the Herron School of Art and Design, freelance artist Brian Priest set up an installation/performance piece in August of 2003 at the J. Martin Gallery in Indianapolis. Re-using a giant red Styrofoam ball he created for a commercial project, Priest camped out the whole time inside the ball, visible to viewers only through a screen on the outside of the ball showing the view from a video camera inside. For 20$, viewers/participants push a basket of found objects through a trap-door to the artist in the bubble, and receive a new piece of art created from these objects.

It is obvious that Priest’s relation to his audience basically forms the piece. “I like getting other people involved,” said Priest in an interview, from within his bubble. “It’s really a collaboration with the viewer.” Further, this form of inter-communication is other than the imposed societal (a)venues, while still embracing (uniquely) the technological situation of the ‘age of the screen.’ But human interaction is only one strand, or one color, in the fabric of Presto, what Nicholas Bourriaud would call ‘relational art.’ In viewing Presto as an example of this relational art, the artist’s and audience’s relation to their environment can be seen as equally at play here. Not only are the found objects remade into new art through the human participants’ actions, but the bubble itself is recycled and given a different function. It is a clear example of how contemporary art works with and within the established material and infrastructural systems, while simultaneously creating something new, even challenging the system.

Even – or especially – the economic system. The artist charges money for the items he constructs, participating in the consumption of art as commodity. The reason for this, and for using the found objects was actually the financial situation of the artist as member of a society where living must be paid for. However, from within this economic system, Priest fights against the availability of art limited to the rich elite. As a protest against artworks sold for hundreds or even thousands of dollars, he provides cheap pieces of art affordable and discardable to all. The momentary action, then, the processual ‘unfinishedness’ of art is important here instead of the finished material product. In the artist’s own words, “It’s like flowers. They might like them for a few days and then throw them away.” And this he says without cynicism.

A review of the show can be found at http://www.nuvo.net/archive/2003/08/20/priest_at_play.html