Art & Education presents a new School Watch report on the École du Magasin and New Artists galleries featuring work from Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) and Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
École du Magasin (1987–2016): How Fitting an End
By Michela Alessandrini, Lore Gablier, and Estelle Nabeyrat
“The École’s initial methodologies emphasized independent study, following Jacques Guillot’s very broad, informal knowledge of contemporary art, which he had acquired through exchanges with artists and peers rather than institutionalized education. The curriculum entailed study trips and meetings with key figures in contemporary art, and Yves Robert and Florence Bonnefous, participants in the first and second sessions of the École, respectively, recalled meetings with Kaspar König, Benjamin Buchloh, Jan Höet, and Harald Szeemann—a reflection of the male, white, educated art power structures that have since hopefully, gradually evolved. Apprenticeships with art professionals held two main objectives: to become familiar with the operation of an art center and its artistic community and to identify young artists with whom the École’s participants could collaborate to produce a commissioned work. Apprenticeships sought to establish true connections between the different personalities involved in artistic production and therefore encouraged dialogues and long-term relationships between curators and artists. “19&&,” the 1988 exhibition produced by the first session of the École, served as a crucial test case of this hypothesis. Eleven artists—Marie-José Burki, Eugenio Cano, Carcle Ramo Nash, Grenville Davey, Thomas Locher, Johan J. A. G. Muyle, Philippe Perrin, Caroline Russel, Siberia (Dominique Gonzalez-Foester, Bernard Joisten, Pierre Joseph, and Philippe Parreno), Patrick van Caeckenbergh, and Anthony Wilson—were selected not according to an overarching topical premise but rather, as Tirdad Zolghadr commented in his essay on the exhibition, assembled over the course of the academic year as a result of the curators’ wanderings and encounters.” [read more]
School Watch presents distilled perspectives on degree programs in the arts, with interviews, critical texts and editorial exposés on MFAs, Masters, Doctorates and certificate programs in fine arts, art history, curatorial, cultural and film studies, and other related areas of specialty.
From the Studio: Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) Degree Show MA Fine Arts 2018
From the Studio—this was the title of the annual degree show that recently brought together twenty-three MA Fine Arts graduates. From the Studio had several implications: on one hand, the show presented twenty-one artistic positions, including two collaborative works created in recent months in the studios—at the Zurich University of the Arts and elsewhere—and visible for the first time in an exhibition context. On the other hand, From the Studio referred to the ways in which artists pursue their work in the studio. The exhibition focused on materials and media, themes, theories, and ideas. From the Studio also meant the moment of movement: from atelier to public sphere.
The studios were cleared out, freshly painted, cleaned. They became spaces with different connotations, spaces in which different rules apply, in which we move differently, in which our eyes are directed differently. Despite bearing occasional traces of the work process on walls or floors, the rooms appeared glistening white at first glance, even as neutralizing “white cubes,” The creations of the twenty-three artists addressed the nature of contemporary artistic work. They negotiated the rules of ZHdK as an art college and sometimes triggered the fire alarm. They broke the neutrality of the white cube exhibition spaces and revealed the struggle between artistic work and work to earn a living. Contributions by the curator and by the exhibiting graduates to a forthcoming MA Fine Arts publication from JRP|Ringier will further reflect these various aspects and dimensions “from the studio.” [view the exhibition]
Academy of Fine Arts Vienna Thesis Exhibition 17/18
Every year, a growing number of highly-qualified graduates of all the study programs offered at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna leave school ready to embark on their new career paths and lives. This year’s Thesis Exhibition 17/18 offered a representative overview of the artwork of students at the Academy and shows how these works have significantly contributed to the development of arts-based research.
The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna is one of the oldest but, at the same time, one of the most innovative art universities in Europe. With more than 1,400 students from over fifty countries and approximately 300 internationally successful lecturers, the Academy is one of the largest among those universities whose research and teaching mainly focus on fine art. [view the exhibition]
New Artists offers schools a platform to present student work from degree shows, open-studio presentations, and other annual student exhibitions.