Considering Tradition, and the Election, at Yale University School of Art
By Owen Duffy
Anoka Faruqee, painting/printmaking’s director of graduate studies, currently on sabbatical, traced the program’s commitment to formal exploration to the pedagogy of Josef Albers, the noted Bauhaus and Black Mountain College educator who helmed the School of Art’s graphic design department in the 1950s. “He really laid the groundwork for thinking about material and formal investigation as the foundation of art production,” said Faruqee. Concepts “entering” students’ practices and interdisciplinary work is encouraged, but Faruqee pointed to the concerted commitment to painting-as-painting that has supported the school’s mission to educate artists, especially through a tumultuous semester that has “forced us to look at power.” [read more]
Embracing Inquiry at the Piet Zwart Institute Master of Fine Art
By Huib Haye van der Werf
Studio visits, seminar discussions, and public programs with core and guest tutors help situate and distinguish tendencies among the students’ practices or discursive positions. The elective curriculum is devised around these assembled affinities by means of thematic seminars or project-based courses conceived by core tutors, and encounters with visiting guests such as cultural theorist Mieke Bal, artist Omer Fast, and writer Marina Vishmidt, or more recently artists Rana Hamadeh, Tyler Coburn, and Louwrien Wijers. The aim is to specify and sharpen the terms of the artist’s practice. The thematic seminar and project courses are often organized in collaboration with other institutions, in the Netherlands and elsewhere, which can offer a more visible platform for students to work from, and towards, while at the same time introducing topics and themes that initially seem uncommon to the field of contemporary art. Overall, the MFA aims to teach what an artist needs to sustain a practice, what (course director Vivian Sky) Rehberg calls “good habits.” [read more]
School Watchpresents 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.
*Image above: (1) View of Black Joy, Yale University School of Art curated by students Kenturah Davis, Vaughn Spann, Johnathan Payne, and Shikeith. November, 2016. Photo: Shikeith. (2) Students from dean Marta Kuzma’s seminar “Diving Into the Wreck: Re-enacting Critical Practice” at film screening, 2016. Photo: Chau Tran. (3) The School of Art’s 36 Edgewood Avenue building. (4) Exhibition view of the Piet Zwart MFA Graduate Exhibition 2016 Assemble Relatives at TENT Rotterdam. Photo: Aad Hoogendoorn. (5) Raluca Croitoru performing Immaterial Institute of Research and Experimentation as part of Assemble Relatives, 2016. Photo: Aad Hoogendoorn. (6) Morning exercises during 2015 Thematic Residency “Sender Sumpf,” led by core MFA tutor Bernd Krauß, at Künstlerhäuser Worpswede. Photo: Vivian Sky Rehberg.