artschool uk is a new project founded by John Reardon, organised and co-ordinated in collaboration with Johannes Maier and Sabine Hagmann. It will explore the work of 21 international artists from all disciplines in daily seminars, workshops, tutorials, visiting presentations, and reading groups, delivered by an exciting and diverse group of artists, curators, critics, galleries, architects and designers. artschool uk is divided into two distinct Phases, Phase I The Art School Phase and Phase II The Reflection and Publication Phase.
For its launch year 2010, artschool uk is working in collaboration with Cell Project Space, London, where Phase I took place from April 6th – 25th, 2010. Images of ARTSCHOOL/UK 2010 on our blog.
At its core, artschool uk is about exchanging ideas with others and approaches art teaching and learning as working best when it focuses on creating an environment where, as Jon Thompson says, ‘absolutely vital moves can be made by young artists’, an environment in which they can relate to and share ideas with one another. This is made possible through
1) Removing teaching and learning from the burden and constraints
of over-administered and over-subscribed art departments and institutions.
2) Placing teachers and participants within an open, discursive public space.
3) Exploring where teaching and learning intersect and overlap with different fields, disciplines,
public interests and forms of cultural production.
History
2006 saw a marked intensification of interest in the present and future condition of art teaching, art school and art education. This grew out of relational and utopian models of collectivity, making and doing and what David Goldenberg calls post autonomous practices. One event in particular stands out; Manifesta 6 (the Manifesta that wasn’t to be) entitled Notes for an art school curated by Mai Abu ElDahab, Anton Vidokle and Florian Waldvogel. This was followed in 2007 with the project Jump into Cold Water by Sønke Gau and Katharina Schlieben at the Shedhalle Zurich as well as Are art schools in crisis?, an event chaired by Critic JJ Charlesworth at the Royal Festival Hall in London. Speakers included Matthew Cornford, Vincent Katz, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Irit Rogoff and Anton Vidokle. In October 2008 at the Serpentine Gallery Manifesto Marathon, Doug Fishbone presented Towards a Free Art School, a text by the Manifesto Club Artistic Autonomy hub. In the same month Art Monthly dedicated a special issue to What is the Future of Art Education? This was supported by panel discussions in the ICA London and the Ikon Birmingham in September–October 2008, which debated the future of art education and whether further privatization, corporatisation and instrumentalism are inevitable or are there alternatives? In August 2009, the Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern, hosted Sommerakademie 2009, curated by Tirdad Zolghadr, entitled Internal Necessity, and which explored ‘how can we use academies and other art-institutional structures to our ends’ and who the ‘we’ is being referred to, how an experimental educational setting can differ from a traditional art school, or from a vocational centre for professional excellence. The Sommerakademie confronted these questions by exploring historical and ideological developments in art school history, along with the theoretical considerations and experiences of present practitioners, and the contradictory effects of the Bologna Process on schooling in general – and arts education in particular. In September 2009, Art School (propositions for the 21st Century) edited by Stephen Henry Madoff, Senior Critic at Yale University, was published and according to Bruce Altshuler, Director in Museum Studies, New York University ‘lays the ground for a critical debate on the future of the art school.’ ch-ch-ch-changes: Artists Talk about Teaching, a collection of interviews with artists teaching in the UK and Germany was also published in September, 2009.
artschool uk propose to ‘practice’ what often remains within the realm of discourse and believe there is a demand for this from artists living in London and the UK who want to have their work challenged within a conducive and emphatic environment as well as artists from outside the UK who also desire this kind of challenge and in addition want to develop their network of connections within the London art world.
