Conflict Management

Conflict Management is configured as a live event that negotiates the boundaries between installation and performance art and can be understood, in part, with the emerging conceptual terrain of Nicholas Bourriaud’s relational aesthetics.

The mechanical aspects of the art work are relatively simple: a small stall was set up in a marketplace, close to other market stalls and in sight of the facades of multinational businesses; at the stall, the services of a local professional ‘arbitrator’ was made available, without charge, to the public for the period of one day. Arbitrators are primarily used in commercial situations in which conventional discussion processes have broken down, but in which peace must be created. The piece made reference to larger questions of conflict. Arbitration is inherently concerned with the attempt to create peace. Thus this tiny site, almost as small as a picnic table, alluded to notions of a peaceful Utopia, whilst it nevertheless seemed vulnerable, dwarfed by the size and architecture of the surrounding environment.

Conflict Management, appeared in the following group shows: Critical Societies: Art, Critique and the Promises of Capitalism, (Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe, 2005) alongside John Baldessari, Carol Bove, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Hans Haacke, Annika Larsson, Allan Sekula, Martha Rosler and ohers; the Tirana Biennale, 2005 alongside Phil Collins, Joost Conijn, Jimmie Durham, Lucy Orta, Olafur Eliasson and others; and, in 2003, Moskva ter / Moscow Square, Museum Ludwig, Budapest, alongside Bik van der Pol, Stefan Keller, János Sugár.

Conflict Management appeared in Townsend New Art from London, (Thames and Hudson, London, 2006), Gressel Critical Societies Reader, (Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe, 2006), Sharjah Biennal 7 Catalogue, (Sharjah Art Museum, Sharjah, 2005) and Hegyi, Moscow Square, (Museum Ludwig, Budapest).