Wednesday, January 3, 2018

Educating the artist

Contemporary art is a crazy quilt of media, theories, objects, performances, videos, interventions, activism, text, actions and strategies. No one really knows what art is, and so anything is art. 
If we don’t know what art is, how can we know what an artist is? And if we don’t know what an artist is, how can we educate students to be artists?
This is the dilemma of the art school. Art schools are still too structurally tied to media because professors are too structurally tied to media. Students often have to leave school to break the binds of media. Academic studies, which provide essential intellectual content, strategies and languages for critical thinking, are often given secondary status.
Primary consideration should be given to research, creativity, critical thinking effective teaching. As much as possible, courage and passion should be nurtured. Media are the means to these goals.
In the end, we don’t educate the artist. We educate the human being who defines the artist.

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