THE ART SCHOOL OF THE 21ST CENTURY IV

Date: Mon, 05 Oct 1998
From: Ineke Schwartz
Subject: Contemporary Art Academy

How it should be...

To be honest, I don't like to dictate how things should be or must be in the future, especially how art or artists will be and should be. I think it is impossible to predict that. Of course I have an opinion and I can formulate it. But as soon as I end my sermon, some artist will probably come up with completely different work and ideas -- and I hope he or she will. Of course art education and the way the art world and the art system function are very important co-shapers of art. But teachers, curators and other art choosers[base '] cannot prescribe how art will be; they have to follow the artists. Artists do what they think they must do and they will do it anyway, be it in the museum or in the street.

What we can do now is look at contemporary society and education (for what we call the future[base '] in fact are parts of the present). Do they link up? Or as Jouke formulates: How would we want to be raised/taught/guided as artists if we were to start today?

Art and contemporary society

We (that is rich people in the western world) live in a world in which an abundance of information, copying and recycling old forms and ideas are the main characteristics. Any communication medium can be used by artists. The difference between high and low art is fading. I would like to say that it has faded. Diesel and Benetton ads are on show in museums, as are music videos by artists; artist VJ's perform at cultural events and computer games are called the sixth artform[base '] -- but most art institutions hold on to paintings, installations and other kinds of so-called autonomous art objects that have no other use than being layered metaphors. I expect this to change a bit, though.

More and more people see that advertising sometimes has much more to say about contemporary life and society, that it can be more layered and full of content than a lot of contemporary art, even when you take into consideration that advertising serves commercial purposes. The same story for (some) design and fashion.

Works of art used to be unique and precious. I do not expect that to change very soon -- for the whole art system is based on that assumption. But in a society in which copying and recycling old forms and ideas are among the main characteristics, this cannot be the only definition of art. I do not expect the art system of curators choosing artists, of museum and gallery shows and the cultivation of the exclusiveness of art for rich people, etc, to disappear soon. But next to that there will be more low art and not-precious and not-exclusive art. That means, more of that will be accepted as art.

How would we want to be raised/taught/guided as artists if we were to start today?

Academies cooperate with universities and other academies. Lessons in art history, social history and philosophy will be given at the university, together with university students.

There is a period in which all kinds of media get a chance.

[to be continued]