Huyghe is so helpful in interview form.

George Baker:
Is a “relational aesthetic” about a reformulation of a political project? Is it instead about an avoidance of the term political? Or is it a kind of pragmatism or realism that we face here–a realization that false political claims for artistic practices were made in the 1980s, and one must not falsely claim immediate political functions for cultural or aesthetic projects?

Huyghe:
Your last point is key. And it should apply as well to critics and historians. It is obviously difficult to define oneself after a postmodern period where we all became extremely self-conscious and aware about the consequences of our actions. This is why conclusions should be suspended but the tension should remain. There is a complexity that must be recognized and that produces a fragile object.
And this is why I have had some problems with the last two Documenta exhibitions. A false claiming of the political. It is a huge problem when the “political” becomes a subject for art. For me, Buren is a political artist. It is a practice that is political, not the subject or the content of the art. Politics is not an apple that you paint in order to legitimate the fact that you paint. That is a moral issue.

Baker:
You are interested then in a politics of form?

Huyghe:
Always, what is crucial is not the arrangement but the rules of arrangement.

-excerpt from an interview in October, MIT Press Journal, Fall 04, on the occasion of Streamside Day Follies at the Dia.