TEXT2SPEECH: Bloomberg New Contemporaries

TEXT2SPEECH is a friendly and informal facilitated reading group that aims to provide a platform for broad discussion around recent contemporary art theory. No prior knowledge of the subject is required, but an interest in contributing to debate always enriches the sessions. The group is targeted at the widest possible public, but may be attractive to students and recent graduates who seek an incentive to read new material with others, also offering an opportunity to meet likeminded people.

For our fourth meeting, we will discuss a text by Julie Ault & Martin Beck Drawing Out & Leading Forth (2006), from Notes for an Art School. The text looks closely at some of the recent changes that have taken place in art school education, interrogating different models of teaching and the ideologies inherent within them.

Taking a comparative approach, the text offers insight into how American models have influenced European trends, leading to business-orientated structures. In turn this is seen to produce an economy of hyper-professionalism amongst a new generation of artists, undermining the historical commitments of the art school as an alternative educational institution.

To contextualise the conversation within the current debates around art school economies in the UK, it may be of interest for participants to also read the recent short article published on New Statesman ‘Is this the end of the British art school?’ by Isabel Sutton.

Access Drawing Out & Leading Forth can be accessed (PDF, pp. 32-40)

Access Is this the end of the British art school?

This reading group has been programmed to respond to Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2014, on display at the ICA from 26 Nov 2014 – 25 Jan 2015.

Event initiated by Student Forum member Jane Scarth.