About the Book
Leading international artists and art educators consider the challenges of art education in today's dramatically changed art world.The last explosive change in art education came nearly a century ago, when the German Bauhaus was formed. Today, dramatic changes in the art world--its increasing professionalization, the pervasive power of the art market, and fundamental shifts in art-making itself in our post-Duchampian era--combined with a revolution in information technology, raise fundamental questions about the education of today's artists. Art School (Propositions for the 21st Century) brings together more than thirty leading international artists and art educators to reconsider the practices of art education in academic, practical, ethical, and philosophical terms. The essays in the book range over continents, histories, traditions, experiments, and fantasies of education. Accompanying the essays are conversations with such prominent artist/educators as John Baldessari, Michael Craig-Martin, Hans Haacke, and Marina Abramovic, as well as questionnaire responses from a dozen important artists--among them Mike Kelley, Ann Hamilton, Guillermo Kuitca, and Shirin Neshat--about their own experiences as students. A fascinating analysis of the architecture of major historical art schools throughout the world looks at the relationship of the principles of their designs to the principles of the pedagogy practiced within their halls. And throughout the volume, attention is paid to new initiatives and proposals about what an art school can and should be in the twenty-first century--and what it shouldn't be. No other book on the subject covers more of the questions concerning art education today or offers more insight into the pressures, challenges, risks, and opportunities for artists and art educators in the years ahead.
Contributors
Marina Abramovic, Dennis Adams, John Baldessari, Ute Meta Bauer, Daniel Birnbaum, Saskia Bos, Tania Bruguera, Luis Camnitzer, Michael Craig-Martin, Thierry de Duve, Clémentine Deliss, Charles Esche, Liam Gillick, Boris Groys, Hans Haacke, Ann Lauterbach, Ken Lum, Steven Henry Madoff, Brendan D. Moran, Ernesto Pujol, Raqs Media Collective, Charles Renfro, Jeffrey T. Schnapp, Michael Shanks, Robert Storr, Anton Vidokle
About the Author: Steven Henry Madoff, an award-winning writer, editor, and poet, has written extensively on contemporary art for such publications as Artforum, the New York Times, and Time magazine, and published numerous monographs on leading artists. He is Senior Critic at Yale University's School of Art. Steven Henry Madoff, an award-winning writer, editor, and poet, has written extensively on contemporary art for such publications as Artforum, the New York Times, and Time magazine, and published numerous monographs on leading artists. He is Senior Critic at Yale University's School of Art. Thierry de Duve is Director of Studies, Association de préfiguration de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris. Boris Groys is an art critic, media theorist, and philosopher. He is Global Distinguished Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies at New York University and Professor of Philosophy at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. He is the author of Art Power, History Becomes Form: Moscow Conceptualism (both published by the MIT Press), and other books. Brendan D. Moran is a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. Robert Storr is Rosalee Solow Professor of Modern Art at New York University Institute of Fine Arts and Director of the 2007 Venice Biennale. Jeffrey Schnapp is the faculty director of metaLAB (at) Harvard, where he is Professor of Romance Literatures, teaches at the Graduate School of Design, and serves as faculty codirector of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Luis Camnitzer (b. 1937) is counted among the most important conceptual artists to emerge from South American in the 1960s. Born in Germany and raised in Uruguay, he moved to New York in 1964 and was at the vanguard of Conceptualism. Daniel Birnbaum is a Swedish art critic, theoretician, and curator. He was the director of the Museum of Modern Art (Moderna Museet) in Stockholm from 2010 to 2018, and currently directs the VR company, Acute Art. Hans Haacke is a German-born artist who lives and works in New York. From 1967 to 2002, he taught at The Cooper Union. Steven Henry Madoff, an award-winning writer, editor, and poet, has written extensively on contemporary art for such publications as Artforum, the New York Times, and Time magazine, and published numerous monographs on leading artists. He is Senior Critic at Yale University's School of Art. Mike Kelley is a Los Angeles-based artist, noise musician, and writer. He is a member of the graduate faculty in the M.F.A. program at Art Center College of Design, Pasadena.
