Situation: Art School

Situation: Art School will bring together notable artist-educators to discuss the values that inform the higher education of artists in today’s challenging global environment. The high cost of tuition has increased pressure on both art schools and graduates to be successful in the marketplace. But what are the costs? Has the art school (including university studio programs) become a factory for turning out career professionals with market-ready portfolios or does it still offer students alternatives from which to challenge the hegemony of the commercial market? How can we reinvest art education with renewed transformative potential, as an enterprise that is not in the service of capital accumulation but about radically reorganizing our understanding of the world and possibilities for the artist within it?

Symposium Schedule:

1:00 Keynote: Luis Camnitzer, Artist and Author

1:30: Panel I: What Are We Preparing At Students For?

Moderator: Kit White, Faculty, Fine Arts Department, Pratt Institute

Panelists:

Anne Gaines, Dean, School of Art, Media, & Technology, Parsons The New School for Design

David Ross, Chair, Art Practice MFA program, School of Visual Arts

Lisa Corrine Davis, Professor, Department of Art & Art History, Hunter College

2:30: Panel II: What is the Role of Art School in a Market Driven Art World?

Moderator: Eva Diaz, Faculty, History of Art & Design Department, Pratt Institute

Panelists:

Jean Shin, Faculty, Fine Arts Department, Pratt Institute

Nayland Blake, Chair, Advanced Photographic Studies MFA program, ICP-Bard

William Powhida, Artist and Writer

3:30: Refreshments

4:00: Breakout session led by the Camel Collective (Carla Herrera-Prats & Anthony Graves)

4:30: Panel III: Beyond the Bricks & Mortar Art School

Moderator: Katherine Carl, Curator of the James Gallery and Deputy Director of the Center for the Humanities, The Graduate Center, CUNY

Panelists:

Ann Messner, Professor, Fine Arts Department, Pratt Institute

Caroline Woolard, Faculty, Parsons The New School for Design; collaborator on Trade School and BFA/MFA/PHD

Bruce High Quality Foundation University (Sean J Patrick, Joe Kay, Andrea Arrubla)

5:30pm Closing discussion, Q & A

6:00: Public Reception, Graduate Galleries, Steuben Hall