Art & Education presents a new School Watch report on the École du Magasin and New Artists gallery featuring work from Piet Zwart Institute Master Fine Art.
École du Magasin (1987–2016): Changing Horizons
By Michela Alessandrini and Lore Gablier
“In the post-Bologna era, the philosophy and methodology of independent studies at the École du Magasin’s core was steadily undermined. The institutionalization of curatorial studies rendered degree-holding a prerequisite for employment, barring many uncredentialed curators from teaching, and instilled careerist expectations in potential curatorial students. By resisting any form of academization, however, the École succeeded in providing a platform to critically engage with curatorial practice, and significantly contributed to debates about the role of the curator in broader societal frameworks. As Andrea Bellini noted in the 2006 article ‘Curatorial Schools: Between Hope and Illusion’: ‘Compared to the other programs, which emerged within universities and are thus conditioned by their rules, the École has benefited from a particularly flexible structure which has allowed it to adapt its teaching methods over time.’ The École remained tuition-free throughout its existence, contrary to comparable programs, and hosted a significant number of international participants, despite the difficulty of obtaining visas as a non-degree-granting program. By providing affordable curatorial education to ethnically and socioeconomically diverse students, who brought with them different educational histories and perspectives, the École inevitably challenged the hegemonic history of art and exhibition-making. It expanded curating into new experimental formats beyond the usual contexts of fetishized and commodified art and the established cultural authority figures.” [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
Tripping Autonomy: Piet Zwart Institute Master Fine Art 2018 Graduate Exhibition
Tripping Autonomy is the title of the 2018 Piet Zwart Institute Master Fine Art graduate exhibition and performance program, and a collaboration between MAMA, platform for visual culture in Rotterdam, PZI MFA artists, and staff, guided by MAMA curator Marloes de Vries.
Autonomy is socially constructed and contingent. In a two-year MA Fine Art program that emphasizes self-direction in studio research and practice and relies on around-the-clock collective self-governance, autonomies are constantly under negotiation as art and life merge and diverge in the most significant and banal ways.
With Tripping Autonomy, the 2018 MFA graduates asserted their agency to trip the term in a group exhibition and performance program that tripped all sensory fuses.
“Tripping” means to activate, fluff, hallucinate, operate, travel with, hoist, stumble over, dance with, obsess over, get high on, activate, mess with, and release. Hence, a “tripping” autonomy is one that acknowledges and embraces the instabilities inherent to all claims for self-determination, art for art’s sake, and the desegregation of art and life.
Participating artists: Timur Akhmetov, Sophie Bates, Shraddha Borawake, Katharina Cameron, Larisa David, Marta Hryniuk, Alexander Iezzi, Anne Kolbe, Johanna Kotlaris, George Nesbitt, Collette Rayner, Victor Santamarina, Anastasia Shin, Nick Thomas, and Sophie Varin. [view the exhibition]
New Artists offers schools a platform to present student work from degree shows, open-studio presentations, and other annual student exhibitions.
