School as Art
Posted February 25, 2010 by dara_g in Art & Politics
Since participating in a session called Pedagogies of the Periphery (organized by Rebecca Zorach) a few weeks ago at threewalls Gallery in Chicago I have been thinking through a lot of questions I have about the current trend of the school form as artist project as well as the call for the March 4th student strike. Once I compiled this long but incomplete list, I got kind of excited about all of the mostly grassroots energy it represents towards rethinking what it means to learn. At the same time I wonder who these art projects serve and if they have oppositional possibilities or are just another venue for people with privilege to socialize with each other and engage in "knowledge production"? Some other questions I have are:
What does this type of art practice say about the current conditions of both official education and/or art?
Although each project is different, does this trend indicate a growing critique of official education?
If so, what are the critiques (pedagogical, corporate, curricular, all/none/etc)?
In what ways are these projects different than official education? Is it the spaces they happen in? Different administrators? Content of courses? Cost? Openness?
What are the politics of the discourse of “openness”?
What constitutes participation in these projects?
What, if any, is the relationship between the impetus for these school art practices and the issues inspiring the student strikes?
There are many other questions to ask and discussions to have related to problems of education today….for now here is a list of school art projects, as well as other types of places where classes are offered to the public, and a list of free schools for young people...
Current or recent school/art projects:
The Anhoek School/ Mary Walling Blackburn, 2009-present http://www.anhoekschool.org/
The AS in the AS/Joanna Spitzner, 2009-present http://www.theasintheas.org/
Art School UK http://www.artschooluk.org/
Bruce High Quality Foundation University, 2009-present http://www.bhqfu.org
Colour School http://colourschool.org/
Copenhagen Free University http://www.copenhagenfreeuniversity.dk/ (ended 2007)
The Exploding School http://www.dismalgarden.org/pages/exploded_school_contents.html
Flying University/Red76/Sam Gould http://www.red76.com/fu.html
The Independent School of Art http://www.independentschoolofart.org
Informal University in Formation http://www.jackie-inhalt.net/index.html
Manoa Free University http://www.manoafreeuniversity.org/
The Mountain School of the Arts http://www.themountainschoolofarts.org/
Night School/Anton Vidokle, New York, 2007-2008 http://www.newmuseum.org/event_series/night_school
Pickpocket Almanack http://www.pickpocketalmanack.org/
Public Social University (organized by social practice students at Portland State University) http://portland.freeskool.org/?q=user/3541
The Public School, Los Angeles, Brussels, Chicago, Helsinki, LA, NY, Paris, Philly, and San Juan 2008- present-
http://thepublicschool.org/
A School of Decreative Methodologies, http://basekamp.com/about/events/school-decreative-methodologies
The School of Missing Studies http://www.schoolofmissingstudies.net/
The School of Panamerican Unrest/Pablo Helguera http://www.panamericanismo.org/index.php
The School of Walls and Space/Nils Norman http://www.kunstakademiet.dk/more.php?id=174_0_2_0_M41
Sundown Schoolhouse/ Fritz Haeg http://www.fritzhaeg.com/schoolhouse.html
Trade School/ Caroline Woolard, 2010, http://tradeschool.ourgoods.org/
United Nations Plaza/ Anton Vidokle, Berlin, 2006-2007
http://www.unitednationsplaza.org/
The University of Trash/ Nils Norman and Michael Cataldi http://www.universityoftrash.org/
In addition to these artist run schools, there are many initiatives/businesses/not-for-profits/self-organized projects that offer non-accredited and low or no cost classes to the public
Bluestockings Bookstore http://bluestockings.com/events/
The Brecht Forum http://brechtforum.org/classes
Experimental College of the Twin Cities: http://www.excotc.org/
Free University of Los Angeles http://www.freeuniversityla.org/
3rd ward http://www.3rdward.com/classes/
Toronto Free Anarchist University http://www.anarchistu.org/cgi-bin/twiki/view/Anarchistu
Universitat Piratahttp://www.sindominio.net/universitatpirata/index_eng.html
University of Openness: http://uo.twenteenthcentury.com/index.php/AboutUo
Alternative Schools within Schools Open to the Public:
Experimental College/EXCO at Oberlin College, 1968 – present, http://oberlinexco.org
Militant and Co-Research at CUNY Grad Center http://www.thisisforever.org/fall-seminar/readings
Free School at Hunter College, NY, Present
Free Schools for Young People
The Albany Free School http://albanyfreeschool.com This school was founded in 1969 and it is still going strong.
The Harriet Tubman Free School http://www.tubmanschool.org/
Brooklyn Free School http://www.brooklynfreeschool.org/ Their links page lists many schools around the world http://www.brooklynfreeschool.org/links/index.html
Some Historical Examples of Radical Schools I Found While Researching Social Movement History:
-During the student strikes of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, self-organized revolutionary seminars were set up in the schools while students were striking.
Documentation of a seminar that took place during a student strike at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago was made by Kartemquin Film Collective and is still in distribution: What The Fuck Are These Red Squares?
-At SUNY Buffalo one of the demands of the strike was the establishment of Tolstoy College/College F, an anarchist college, that was open from 1969-1983. Faculty were paid by the larger university.
-Liberation School for Women, a project of the Chicago Women’s Liberation Union
-Free School/Alt University was located in the War Resister’s Building at 339 Lafayette Street in NYC.
Related articles:
Katie Hargrave “Paolo Freire and Educational Models as Art Practice,” 4/1/2009
http://blog.katiehargrave.us/2009/04/paulo-freire-and-educational-models-as.html
above image from new newspaper: After the Fall
Comments
A friend recently suggested this excellent lecture by Astra Taylor about her personal experience with unschooling: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwIyy1Fi-4Q
Hello, I found your blog by a FB recommendation of Joseph Del Pesco, I've just started a referential map of similar projects in Mexico, published as the first DISPATCH from iCI. I write to share hoping you'll find it interesting.
Experimental pedagogy and art practice in Mexico
By Sofía Olascoaga
If the short lived Non stop liberal arts institute of the transferred new fangled Alumni bought not defunct Antioch College works, it has a successor: http://nonstopinstitute.org
Experimental pedagogy and art practice in Mexico
http://www.ici-exhibitions.org/index.php/dispatches/
Provisions Library is a research and production center for arts and social change in Washington DC.
www.provisionslibrary.org
thanks for this dara its great. i didnt know about some of these! my sense is that more than anything these projects point to the failure of the university's relevancy for radical discourse. I'm a little more ambivalent toward some of the 'art' education projects - i think more of them perform what education might look like and often lack any real sedimented inquiry...
successful or not, clearly there is a need for autonomous research and collective knowledge production.
I also wanted to share some zines i've been making with lots of this kind of content. including the occupation stuff happening all over. please distribute! m4 is around the corner.
http://1000littlehammers.wordpress.com/library/
Amanda sent me this which adds into the dialogue about what's happening with higher education:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/25/AR2010022506012_pf.html
there are more:
FREE / SLOW UNIVERSITY OF WARSAW via Dylan
more http://www.wuw2009.pl/wuw.php?lang=eng
Malmo Free University via Malin
http://www.mfkuniversitet.blogspot.com/
and a conference (this is not an art project):
Beneath the University: The Commons
http://beneaththeu.org
A school experiment for teaching artists, opening this summer in a Bushwick park in Brooklyn, NY.
http://www.schoolofthefuture.org
Espacio A is an alternative, non-traditional school in Puerto Rico, founded in February 2007. Serves ages 5-17.
and some more:
two new contemporary art publications related to this:
e-flux journal
Issue #14 March 2010
Education Actualized
guest-edited by Irit Rogoff
Available online: http://e-flux.com/journal/
and
"You Talkin' to Me? Why are Artists and Curators Turning to Education?"
Book Launch
Location: VU University, De Boelelaan 1105
Following the critically acclaimed reader "Curating Subjects" (2007) Open Editions and de Appel arts centre (2007) publish the companian volume: "Curating and the Educational Turn". Ed. by Paul O'Neill & Mick Wilson
In recent years there has been increased debate about the incorporation of pedagogy into art and curatorial practice –what has been termed 'the educational turn'. In this publication artists, curators, critics and academics respond to this widely recognised sense of art's paradigmatic re-orientation towards the educational.
With text contributions by:
16 Beaver Group, Peio Aguirre, Dave Beech, David Blamey & Alex Coles, Daniel Buren & Wouter Davidts, Cornford & Cross, Charles Esche, Annie Fletcher & Sarah Pierce, Liam Gillick, Janna Graham, Tom Holert, William Kaizen, Hassan Khan, Annette Krauss, Emily Pethick, & Marina Vishmidt, Stewart Martin, Ute Meta Bauer, Marion von Osten & Eva Egermann, Andrea Phillips, Raqs Media Collective, Irit Rogoff, Edgar Schmitz, Simon Sheikh, Sally Tallant, Jan Verwoert, Anton Vidokle, Tirdad Zolghadr
Published by Open Editions (London) & de Appel (Amsterdam)
ISBN: 978-0-949004-18-5
Designed by Jonathan Hares
Soft board cover with dust jacket
215 x 115 x 25mm
348pp English
check this out
you rule!
An upcoming discussion about alternative models of education and how they can inform artist-run schools:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=111638895535014&ref=mf
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Julia Christensen in Oberlin let me know about another to add to the art list:
The Plum Academy http://www.spacesgallery.org/2009/exhibitions/main/academy/
Posted by: dara_g at February 25, 2010 5:05 PM