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Why Art Happens Outside of the Classroom

“Out of a thousand art students, maybe five well make a living off their art, and perhaps one will be known outside her city. That’s not a condemnation. It’s the nature of fame, real quality, and genuine influence to be rare. [... ]

“[I]t is still true that most artists do not make interesting art. And it follows that most art students do not make the kind of art that they study and admire. Some people would say they make art that imitates “better” art, so that art schools at any given time art filled with people making art that is roughly emulating more successful art being made elsewhere. [... ]

“Average people — average art students — are not innovative, challenging, aggressive, adventurous, or strong. Most art students do not spend their lives in intense dialogue with their work, and few are reliably challenging or provocative. Whether or not you care about the criteria that museums like the National Gallery promote, the fact is that most work produced in most studio art classes is bound to be utterly normal and low-energy. Few of us master the cutting edge or come to terms with the most radical work in our field.”

Why Art Cannot Be Taught
by James Elkins

The above quote indicates that average students create average work that will never be celebrated outside of the safe circle of friends and family. It is a sad truth, but one of which we are all aware. It would be fantastic if each graduating class was teeming with “genius” and “unfathomable energy,” but it is not so.

Aside from hobbyists who are just taking a class to learn a bit more about art (which is entirely valid), I partially blame lukewarm art on the emphasis on “classroom learning.” Honestly, how much learning and energy can take place in a classroom? Classrooms are all about average. The walls are institutional beige so as not to disturb (how can you learn about art in beige?); the floors are bland vinyl tile designed not to inspire, but to hide stains; or a hearty but unimaginative berber carpet to stand wear and tear; the chairs were purchased more for economy than function or comfort; lighting is fluorescent (with one light spasmodically blinking to induce epileptic fits); windows are scarce; and PowerPoint is for squares. If graded, most university classrooms would get a C at best. The best classes I had were off campus – in artists’ studios, restaurants, museums or galleries or just outside in the fresh air. Lackluster surroundings breed lackluster thinking and thus lackluster work.

A few months ago, I was reading an exchange between John Baldessari and Michael Craig-Martin where they spoke of the glory days of their academic institutions (UCLA and Goldsmiths, respectively):

Craig-Martin: “We didn’t have classes, and students weren’t attached to anybody in particular. Everyone who taught there was available for every student.”

Baldessari: “Yeah, comparable to that, we had one guy teaching the equivalent of critical studies, and class was in session whenever you met him on campus, which I thought was really good.”

Michael Craig-Martin went on to make the following comment:

“Yes, it’s very important to have people whose central world is not the world of education. The great thing about having artists teaching in an art school is that they bring their experience of what it is to be an artist in the world into the school. And so this thing you can’t teach, you’re teaching by example. You’re teaching by your presence. You’re teaching because you’re sitting at lunch with kids and they’re learning as much at lunch, if not more, than they are when you’re talking to them in the studio.”

Most art programs suffer from an administrative plague contracted from liberal arts universities. In an effort to level academic fields, all programs were treated the same from chemistry to engineering to business to art. A certain amount of credit hours are required in certain types of classes in order for a department to receive accreditation from a “higher” power. Quantification is forced over a field that is almost impossible to quantify. Assignments run roughshod over ideas, students worry about silly things like grades rather than learning, and faculty are managers rather than mentors.

There can be a place for assignments. Practices and exercises teach skill – canonized skill, but skill nonetheless. What is often not taught is that those skills are at the service of concept. Skill without concept gives us light studies, color charts, still life paintings and photos, maquettes, and figure studies. Students will spend four years in an undergraduate institution to walk away with a backpack full of skills (exemplified in a tepid portfolio of assignments) and no idea how to use them.

Students need to get out and make things that aren’t assignments or expected. Most importantly, this needs to happen outside of school, away from the watchful eye of the accredited program. Of course, this brings us back to the need for “innovative, challenging, aggressive, adventurous, or strong” students and equally challenging mentors who will chase their students into unfamiliar areas in an effort to help them find their voice in a new era. Art will occur best out in the world and not under the flickering fluorescents of the institution.

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