The book Re-Inventing the Art School 21st Century is a series of four essays from people involved with Willem de Kooning Academy, Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, in the Netherlands. The Essays are titled, respectively, Reflections on Art Education; Interventions, Experimentation Markets: Art Education and Cross-Disciplinary Creative Practice; Art, creativity and economy: New opportunities built on a problematic past relationship; The Need for Open Design: How Changes in the 21st Century Create the Conditions for a Collaborative Practice in Design.
“From the Renaissance to the present day, much of the history of Western visual arts can be interpreted as a continuous struggle for emancipation from the ‘lower’ crafts, and acceptance into the ‘higher’ liberal arts” (p.30) They give an overview of the history of art schools and societal concepts of art, from Plato (400 BCE, art didn’t convey ideas), to the master-apprentice system (Middle Ages, art as craftsman trade), to the Academie des Beaux Arts (17th cent, idealist, technical consistency and proficiency), the Arts and Crafts movement (19th cent, practical, vocational), to Bauhaus (1919-1933, design moved to the level of fine art) and Black Mountain College (1933-1957, anti-authoritarian), Fluxus and Situationist International (1960s, further integration of art/design into broader culture and professions), and CalArts (1961-today, countercultural, power of creativity for better society).
The “dualism of Western Art seem only to have shifted: from ‘mechanical’ versus ‘liberal’ arts, to ‘applied’ versus ‘fine’ arts; or, in the 19th and 20th centuries, ‘design’ versus ‘visual art’; and finally, in the 21st century, ‘creative industries’ versus ‘artistic research'” (p.31).
They move to reflections on the current situation, where there is no fixed notion of what art is and the success of schools is now based on the curricular subject matter and the reputation of the schools’ teachers and alumni.
They are also looking at the current role of artists and designers in relation to how schools are being organized and taught. Specifically, they see professional practices increasingly incorporating “loose and shifting collaborations,” and that “art and design are no longer an exclusive act by a single individual artist or designer” (p.15) but that schools are not keeping up. They say that study disciplines no longer correspond to work disciplines.
“Cross-disciplinary project-oriented and theme-oriented creative work is no longer a niche for experimental or activist art; rather it has become a mainstream skill requirement for the commercial market” (p.42). In the world, creatives often play different roles on a team, have hybrid approaches including fine art strategies and applied work, and get income from a fluctuating combination of avenues.
At Willem de Kooning Academy (WdKA), students start in their discipline and then move to focus on a “work field” seen as following three channels. Social practices are about enhancing the quality of life for individuals and groups, Autonomous practices are individually directed careers, and Commercial practices are working in conjunction with commercial sectors. They learn about specific methods and conventions, creating links between their studies and the outside world, and providing avenue for putting their education to use in their lives after graduation.
The book goes on to track the entwinement of art, culture, production and economics and the rise of the creative class and how art schools interact.
I found the book most useful and helpful in this historical framework to understand movements and trends in dominant cultural thoughts about art and design and art education. Written in response to and justifying a radical re-thinking of the structure of WdKA, there’s cogent analysis of why arts education has changed and needs to continue to change in reponse to changing world and cultural dynamics.
Much of the emphasis was exactly on the hybrid nature of creative work in the world today and the need for arts education to recognize that shift in their pedagogical approaches. “All these developments require artists to embrace interdisciplinary or trans-disciplinary approaches to art and design processes” (p.17).
This is all further justification for the necessity of strenthening the abilities of students to collaborate, to work fluidly between disciplines: these approaches are what is happening in the world, and univiersities need to better equip students to handle that multi-disciplinary reality.