The Decision Between Us: Art and Ethics in the Time of Scenes [Book Review]

Relationality, sociality, performativity are just a few of the key terms that John Paul Ricco explores in his new book The Decision Between Us: Art and Ethics in the Time of Scenes. Similar locutions occur in a number of recent theoretical volumes on contemporary art (see Books in Brief). Following the "dematerialization" of art in the 1960s, many artists shifted their focus from the art object to the viewer and the situation. Then, beginning in the '90s, attention moved to various kinds of interpersonal "relations." This, at least, is what a number of curators and art historians—such as Nicolas Bourriaud, Claire Bishop and Nato Thompson—have been arguing for the last couple decades.