
O obrazovanju i samoobrazovanju / Miško Šuvaković
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Nedavno sam pročitala transkript vašeg predavanja/dijaloga Metod, format, strategija, taktika, praksa, procedura, protokol, platforma i ostala ispitna pitanja za profesora, koje se održalo u Magacinu u Kraljevića Marka 2010. godine. Možete li mi za početak reći nešto više o ovom samom događaju i njegovom, čini mi se, hibridnom formatu?
Poslednjih dvadesetak godina sam držao ili izvodio predavanja na različitim mestima, za sasvim različite ljude, na različitim jezicima i iz različitih razloga. Za mene je predavački rad – predavanje kao izvedba, važan posao ili, tačnije, aktivnost. Nije samo reč o predaji/prodaji znanja, već o konstruisanju interaktivnog odnosa koji vodi ka izvesnom ili, češće, neizvesnom znanju o umetnosti, kulturi, društvu ili individualnoj i kolektivnoj subjektivizaciji.
Razgovor koji spominjete, Metod, format, strategija, taktika, praksa, procedura, protokol, platforma i ostala ispitna pitanja za profesora, izveden je za grupu Termini/pojmovi koja je delovala u kontekstu širih projekata Anti-Jargon-a i TkH-a. Reč je bila o praksama samoobrazovanja. Neposredni provod je bio ”upotreba” moje TV serije Videopojmovnik kao polazišta za učenje i kritičke analize saradnika na projektu. Reč je o kritici žargona u svetu umetnosti – kao onog skupa termina ili diskursa koji se koriste kontekstualno bez posebnog kritičkog ili analitičkog pristupa tj. razumevanja.
Na izvestan način bio sam hibridni instrument u radu ove grupe i njihovog napora da izađu iz netransparentnosti beogradskih umetničkih i teorijskih žargona i izraza. Zašto kažem hibridni instrument? Zato što je videopojmovnik bio audiovizuelni metajezik, a moj razgovor sa članovima projektnog tima je bio dijaloški metakritički jezik o audiovizuelnom metajeziku koji se odnosi na termine/pojmove umetnosti i teorije 20. veka. Kao što naslućujete – komplikovana situacija!
Imala sam tu sreću da jednu godinu provedem na studentskoj razmeni u Austriji, gde sam se susrela sa mnogim eksperimentalnim nastavnim formama i stekla sam utisak da je akcenat definitivno iz prostora podučavanja pomeren na prostor diskusije. Koliko je diskusija važne za jednog profesora a koliko za studenta, tj. mladog autora i postoji li uopšte u tom smislu razlika između ove dve pozicije?
Jedna velika tradicija modernističkih umetničkih škola je bila sve do kraja šezdesetih godina – nemost. Umetnost se pravi, a o umetnosti se ne razgovara. Likovna umetnost se uči gledanjem, a muzika slušanjem. Postoji i ta stara francuska poslovica: Kada ulaziš u slikarstvo, iseci jezik. Takav pristup je bio odbačen, na primer, u eksperimentalnim umetničkim školama, kao što je bio Bauhaus (1919-1933) ili Black Mountain College (1933-1957). Tamo je uveden metod istraživanja i prakse rešavanja oblikovnih problema.
Pripadnici grupe Art & Language (Terry Atkinson, Michael Baldwin) su kasnih šezdesetih godina na umetničkim školama počeli da se bave razgovorom između nastavnika i studenata. U tom smislu je Terry Atkinson pisao: “Mi ne pokušavamo da pretpostavimo individualnu subjektivnost. Mi pokušavamo da pretpostavimo pojedinačni odnos među subjektima, a to je razgovor. U tome se ne slažem sa mnogim profesorima umetnosti i sa umetničkim školama kroz koje smo prošli.” Postoji tendencija (ili kako god hoćete da je nazovete) da se umetnost tiče ličnog izražavanja, nemarnog u upotrebi termina. Znači da postoji ta neka vrsta opuštnosti i nemarnosti prema samom cilju govora, a taj sam govor čini poziciju iščašenog, nesmeštenog, da se od vas u stvari ne očekuje stejtment.
“U razgovoru sa studentima mi pokušavamo da pretpostavimo intersubjektivne odnose na višem nivou od uobičajenog, mi ne pretpostavljamo intersubjektivne odnose u slikarstvu i skulpturi (u stvaranju objekata).” Šta znači intersubjektivni? To je odnos više od jednog subjekta. Na primer, kada profesor dođe u klasu od pet studenata, on počinje da komunicira ne sa samo jednim, već sa svima, i oni počinju da komuniciraju međusobno. Ta razmena koja čini zapravo atmosferu, odnos u klasi, je intersubjektivna.
Modernističke akademije su uvek insistirale na pojedincu. Studenti su prisutni i stvaraju svoje delo, ali nisu u odnosu sa drugima. Onda dođe neko sa strane (kao što je pripadnik Art & Language) i vidi da sve to što se radilo u jednoj klasi liči, što znači da postoji neka intersubjektivna platforma gde su svi ti ljudi i u tom smislu Art & Language je insistirao da na umetničkoj školi mora da počne da se razgovara na teorijski način, tj. da se uspostavi intersubjektivna razmena.
Danas je na emancipovanim umetničklim školama “normalna” praksa da se ne radi samo na poetikama stvaranja, već i na teoriji istraživanja unutar umetničke prakse. Time se zamisao dijaloga postavlja u centar pažnje. Pri tome dijalog nije “žargonski” – privatno ćaskanje – već pokušaj teoretizacije pristupa unutar umetničkog rada. Ništa se ne podrazumeva i nije samo po sebi razumljivo.
U ovom transkriptu se takođe pominju pitanja kritike i samokritike. Na koje načine su povezani ovi pojmovi sa dijalogom i koliko je to sve bitno za pojedince i institucije?
Kritički način mišljenja znači prepoznati objekt interesovanja, analizirati koncepte i fenomene bavljenja, te komparativnom pozicijom naznačiti svoje pozicije i pozicije prema kojima referiramo. Vidite, u 18. veku na umetničkim akademijima osnovni kriterijum je bilo “tehnički lepo”, u 19. veku je bilo reči o “autentičnom ili iskrenom lepom”, početkom 20. veka se kriterijum vrednosti gradio oko inovativnog (novog, modernog, savremenog). Tu su se zatim umnožili kriterijumi ka utopijskom, projektivnom, utilitarnom, konceptualnom, pa i anti-vrednosnom u dadi i neodadi. Danas je jedna od vrednosti koja se stiče umetničkim radom na školi – kritičko razumevanje i kritičko delanje.
Što se tiče autokritičkog, to je jedna stara kategorija praktične poetike. Grubo rečeno: umetnik koji želi da napreduje mora biti spreman da podvrgne sopstveni rad analizi i time kritičkom razumevanju.
Deo koji mi je bio posebno zanimljiv je kada pričate o pojmu platforme:
Dolazi profesor koji vam priča iz svog velikog iskustva istinu života, priča o tome šta je pravi život, šta je prava umetnost, kako se umetnost stvara, oseća, prikazuje, a postavlja vam sva pravila koja morate na najrigidniji način poštovati, a da vam ne iskaže ni jedno pravilo. To je ono što se može nazvati atmosferom ili diskursom u Foucault-ovom smislu.
Šta je platforma i na koji način je povezana sa ideologijom i politikom?
Platforma je termin sličan terminu paradigma (po Thomasu Kuhnu). Platforma označava skup uverenja, znanja, modaliteta umetničkog i teorijskog rada, načina postavljanja i rešavanja problema koju postavlja jedan pojedinac ili grupa (klasa, tim). Većina umetnika ima platformu, ali je ne konceptualizuje i ne reflektuje. Savremeno obrazovanje se zasnivana na osposobljavanju studenta-umetnika da reflektuje, spozna ili kritički razvija svoju platformu.
Politika je način na koji se obrazuje jedan društveni odnos. Možemo razlikovati makro i mirkopolitike. Na primer, uspostavljanje odnosa u jednoj umetničkoj klasi na umetničkom fakultetu je mikropolitička praksa. U tom smislu, svaka praksa je u izvesnim aspektima politička, tj. u smislu uspostavljanja odnosa sa drugim platformama ili građenja metaplatforme.
Ideologija je složen pojam. U pojednostavljenom altiserovskom smilsu, ideologija je način na koji jedan individuum sebe predstavlja sebi i drugima u postajanju subjektom. Platforma može biti ideološki dispozitiv.
Na koji način negiranje i\ili netransparenost platfome utiču na proces umetničkog obrazovanja? Koliko bitno da institucija koja se bavi umetničkim obrazovanjem ima jasno definisanu platformu?
Postoji i mogućnost da takva institucija nema platformu (npr. Dizeldorfska Akademija imala je platformu da hoće da ima “skupe” profesore; u jednom momentu imala je za profesore jako uspešne i poznate umetnike koji ni na koji drugi način nisu delili umetničku platformu npr. Beuysa, Becherove, Rinkea…). U krajnjem slučaju ni vaša akademija (FLU) nema takvu vrstu platforme. Ona je negde globalno modernističko/postmodernistička, u to se može smestiti bilo šta i bilo šta izuzeti.
Ja smatram da škola mora da ima platformu ili da ima više platformi i da platforma/-e treba da budu konceptualizovane jer u današnje vreme (kad kažem današnje, mislim u poslednjih 150 godina) institucija koja nema reflektovanu platformu i sopstvenu poziciju kao takvu stvara probleme. Drugim rečima, danas je profesor, ili umetnik, ili student, koji želi da napreduje u onome što radi, mora da vidi koja je njegova pozicija i ka kom cilju ide. To je preuzimanje odgovornosti, ali sa druge strane i ulaženje u ono što se zove transparentni diskurs ili diskurs u kome vi znate šta je poruka.
Jedan od velikih modernističkih mitova je da vi dobijete neku vrstu zaumnosti kroz pedagogiju, a to znači trag genijalnosti, koji ne može da se iskaže i pokaže, vi ga jednostavno stičete kroz vaše zrenje (jer umetnik se ne školuje, umetnik zri dok ne postane neko ko je sposoban da jednog dana realizuje svoja remek-dela). Ali remek-dela ne postoje, postoje dela koja jedan određeni sistem kulture, sistem umetnosti, ako hoćemo i ekonomski sistem, postavi i uvede u igru bitnih dela. To ne znači da su to loša dela, ali je pitanje kriterijuma dobrog i lošeg je danas jako složeno, kao što je to bilo i pre 500 godina. Drugim rečima, neophodno je imati jednu vrtsu permanantne refleksije načina rada škole, njenih teorijskih, estetskih, tehničkih i, ako hoćete, tržišnih ciljeva tj. imati svest za koju se ciljnu grupu pripremaju umetnici. Ako osnujemo školu koja je npr. zasnovana isključivo na tradiciji konceptualne umetnosti, mi time, naravno, ne pravimo školu gde su studenti usmereni na tržište umetninama, onu su usmereni na jednu vrstu onoga što se zove kulturalni rad (culture worker). To su potpuno ciljno različite tačke o kojima se govori i to škola mora da ima negde u svojoj svesti. U protivnom, vi dobijete ljude koji kad završe školu ne znaju kuda će. To ne znači da svi umetnici treba da budu teoretičari, ali znači da moraju da imaju izvesne aparate i instrumente kojima mogu da naprave nekakvu teorijsku refleksiju ili teorijski gest.
Možete li prokomentarisati platformu ili platforme koje postoje u institucionalizovanom umetničkom obrazovanju u Srbiji?
U Srbiji postoji konačan broj obrazovnih platformi na umetničkim školama i one su uglavnom kanonski povezane sa modernističkim idealima otvorenog zanata i individualne kreativnosti. Umetničke škole čeka dugi i spori put emancipacije. Dalje se ne bih upuštao u ovu temu jer bi ona bila za poveću knjigu.
Kako bi ste prokomentarisali kakonsku povezanost umetničkih visokoškolskih institucija u Srbiji i modernističkog ideala individualne kreativnosti?
Vi imate jednu zanimljivu činjenicu. Posle Drugog svetskog rata, kada su uspostvaljane akademije koje su sada fakulteti umetnosti, one su uspostavljane u ključu socijalističkog realizma. Veliki broj tada zaposlenih profesora, koji su oni koji su proizašli iz rata ili oni koju su bili tu pre Drugog svetskog rata, su prihvatili socijalistički realizam, ali su sa sobom doneli i tzv. umereni modernizam, ili (ono što je u Srbiji bilo najizrazitije) intimizam. Sa prvom krizom socijalističkog realizma, kada Jugoslavija raskida sa Sovjetskim Savezom, počinje da se razvija nešto što će biti nazvano obnova modernizma, socijalistički estetizam, socijalistički modernizam, i najjaču struja koja se tu uspostavlja vezanu oko ideala intimizma, što znači da su veliki majstori predratne umetnosti uspeli da prenesu svoje učenje na prvu posleratnu generaciju. U tom smislu umetničke škole se uspostavljaju kao modernističke škole sa svim obeležjima i odlikama koje sa sobom nosi socijalistički modernizam i tradicije umerenog modernizma (tu je reč umereni modernizam značilo između figuracije i apstrakcije). To vam je na neki način shema. Ta shema je postojala bez velikih postresa sve do početka osamdesetih godina. Čak i pojava konceptualne umetnosti, koja je izgledala kao kritika Akademije, ostala je uvek spolja, izvan Akademije. Ono što se sa osamdesetim godinama desilo jeste pojava postmoderne i tzv. povratka skulpturi i slikarstvu u postmoderni osamdesetih, što je na određeni način bilo blisko poznom modernizmu ili poznom umerenom modernizmu same Akademije. Na taj način je jezik postmoderne već od kraja osamdesetih, kroz devedesete i dvehiljadite integrisan u Akademiju, i on je na neki način vezan za reorganizaciju (Englezi imaju jedan bolji termin – reskilling), obnovu tehničkih sredstava u okviru postmodernih ideologija i mehanizama. U tom smislu su akademije postavljene oko tog postmodernog idealiteta fetišističkog umetničkog dela, koje na eklektičan način povezuje, sa jedne strane različite tematske sadžaje (znači i figuraciju i apstrakciju), a sa druge strane povezuje taj reskilling, što znači obnovu tehnika, veština i umeća kroz, sada, modernizovani način i tu je najbolji primer nova skulptura kao takva.
To je ono što ove škole kanonski postavljaju, s tm što to nije eksplicitni kanon, vi ga nemate nigde napisanog, on postoji kao jedna vrsta prećutnog znanja kroz koji škola egzistira i postoji. Tako da je zapravo deo konceptualnog mišljenja ili deo eksperimentalnog mišljenja tek sporadično povezan za delove pojedinih umetničkih praksi izvesnih predavača, odnosno izvesne projekte koji su se kroz tu transmedijalnost pojavljivali i koji bi trebalo da uvedu jednu vrstu drugačijeg kanona od kanona moderna/postmoderna.
Sa druge strane, svaka škola postavlja svoj kanon, čak i kad se uspostavi transmedijalni rad, i on će biti kanon. Problem nije u tome da li kanon postoji, već da li je on doveden do govora i mogućnosti analize i rasprave. Onog trenutka kada vi krenete nekoga da podučavate, vi uspostavljate kanon, ali problem nastaje kada kažete da kanona nema, ja vas učim istinu o umetnosti, ja vas učim ono što vi osećate. Na neki način zadatak teorijske ili proteorijske ili konceptualne ili diskuzivne analize umetničke škole je pokazati da kanon postoji i koji su njegovi opsezi i koje su njegove konvencije i načini funkcionisanja.
Uvek, naravno, postoji i mogućnost samoobrazovanja. Kakav je Vaš stav po ovom pitanju?
Samoobrazovanje je važan aspekt svakog obrazovnog procesa. Znanje se ne dobija kao dar, već se stiče napornim radom, autokritičkim istraživanjem svog rada i odnosa sa vremenom i kontekstima u kojima se živi i dela, borbom za prepoznavanje savremenosti.
Može se govoriti o dve vrste samoobrazovanja:
– samoobrazovanje kao dodatak ili aspekt redovnog školskog obrazovanja, gde tražite svoju platformu u odnosu na ponuđene školske platforme;
– samoobrazovanje kao oblik samoorganizovanja izvan školskog konteksta. Da, ovo je važan pristup, jer studenti ili bivši studenti time preuzimaju odgovornost za sopstveni proces učenja i razmene znanja. Pristalica sam samoorganizovanog samoobrazovanja u procesu školovanja ili kasnijem samostalnom radu. Stvaranje konteksta i miljea rada, tj. platforme je danas sastavni aspekt svake umetničke prakse.
Šta bi bio vaš savet za mlade ljude sa ambicijom da posvete par godina svog života umetničkom obrazovanju?
Saveti nekada mogu koristiti, a nekada ne. Pre bih upotrebio termin predložena platforma za istraživanje umetničkog obrazovanja:
– Pročitao bih par knjiga na tu temu. Danas postoji bogata literatura o savremenom umetničkom obrazovanju i ona je povezana sa takozvanim “obrazovnim obrtom u umetnosti”;
– preko inetrneta bih pregledao sajtove izvesnog broja elitnih inetrnacionalnih škola, ANALIZIRAO BIH NJIHOVE PLATFORME, PROTOKOLE I PROCEDURE;
– ako bih bio u mogućnosti, pohađao bih letnje kurseve na umetničkim školama, institutima i galerijama, razgovarao sa studentima i predavačima, te analizirao, intervjuisao bi ih usmeno ili pismeno;
– pravio bih pregledne tablice kojima se uporedno pokazuju načini izvođenja umetničke nastave;
– pokušao bih da napravim različite modele škole radeći sa kolegama ovde i u belom svetu.
Ali ono što je važno – morate poći od pretpostavke da umetnost nije samo svaranje/pravljenje umetničkog dela, već složeni proces učenja, istraživanja u područijima koja nisu samo umetnička (politika, kulturalne studije, istraživanje medija, oblici komunikacije u svakodnevnom životu i životu u svetu umetnosti, kustoski rad, teorijski rad, aktivizam itd….)
On Education and Self-education.
In conversation with Miško Šuvaković
I have recently read the transcript of your lecture/discussion The Method, the Format, The Strategy, The Praxis, The Protocol, The Platform and the Other Exam Questions for the Professor, which took place in 2010 in Magacin in Kraljevića Marka St. Could you, please, tell me more about this particular event and about its seemingly hybrid format?
During the last 20 years I have held or performed lectures in various places for various audience in various languages for various reasons. Educational work, education as performance, is for me a very serious job, or more correctly, a serious activity. It is not only about delivering/selling of the knowledge, but about constructing interactive relationship, which leads to a certain or, more oftenly, to an uncertain knowledge about art, culture, society, or individual or collective subjectivization.
The lecture you refer to – The Method, the Format, The Strategy, The Praxis, The Protocol, The Platform and the Other Exam Questions for the Professor – was performed for Temini/pojmovi (Terms/Notions), which had occurred in broader context of projects Anti-Jargon and TkH. It was all about self-educational praxis. The immediate cause for this was the “utilization” of my TV series Videopojmovnik (Video Glossary)as a starting point for learning and the critical analysis of projects collaborates. It was a critique of jargon, as a corpus of the terms or discourses which were used contextually and without specific critical or analytical approach, i.e. understannding, in the art world.
In a certain way I had a role of a hybrid instrument in the work of this particular group and their effort to come out from the non-transparency of Belgrade artistic and theoretical jargons and terms. Why do I say a hybrid instrument? Because Videopojmovnik was audio-visual meta-language, and my dialogue with the project team members was a meta-critical language dialogue about audio-visual meta-language in the terms of notions/definitions of art and theory in 20th century. A complicated situation, as you might guess!
I have been lucky enough to spend a year on a student exchange in Austria, where I have been introduced to various experimental teaching forms and I got a general impression that educational focus definitely shifted from traditional teaching to the form of discussion. What is the importance of the discussion for the professor and for the student, i.e. young author, and is there any difference between their positions in those terms?
Speechlessness was one big tradition of modernist schools until the end of the 60ies. Art is not to be talked about, but to be made. Visual art was learned thought watching and music was learned thought hearing. There is also an old French proverb: When entering a painting, cut off your tongue. This approach was abandoned, for example, in experimental art schools, as it was the Bauhaus (1919-1933) or the Black Mountain College (1933-1957). They introduced the method of research and the praxis of solving formal problems.
In the late sixties members of the group Art & Language (Atkinson, Baldwin) started introducing conversation between teachers and students at art schools. In this sense, Terry Atkinson wrote: “We are not trying to assume individual subjectivity. We try to assume a relationship between individual subjects, and that is a conversation. In fact, I do not agree with many professors of art and art schools through which we passed”. There is a tendency (or whatever you want to call it) for art to concern personal expression, which is careless in use of terms. So there is this kind of tranquility and carelessness towards the aim of speech and the speech itself has this distorted and unclassified position, and you are not really expected to have a statement.
“We are trying to assume intersubjective relations at a higher level than usual in a conversation with students, and we do not assume intersubjective relations in painting and sculpture (in creating objects)”. What does the term “intersubjective” mean? That is the relation between more than one subject, e.g. the teacher comes to the class of five students and he begins to communicate not just with one student, but also with everyone, and students begin to communicate with each other. This exchange, which is in fact the atmosphere and relations in a class, is intersubjective.
Modernist academies have always insisted on the individual. Student was present and created his/her work, but he/she did not create it in relation to other students. Then somebody (e.g. a member of the Art & Language) came in the class and saw that everything in the class of resembled, which means that there is an intersubjective platform for all these people and in this regard, Art & Language insisted discussing that theoretical manner must be introduced in the art school, i.e. intersubjective exchange must be established.
Today, “normal” practice within emancipated art schools is that not only the poetics of creation are considered, but also the theory of research within the artistic practice. The idea of a dialogue is thereby at the center of attention. This dialogue is not a “jargon” – a private chat – but an attempt of theorizing an approach within the art work. Nothing shall go without saying and nothing is self-understandable in itself.
Issues of criticism and self-criticism were also mentioned in this transcript. Which are the ways of relating these concepts with dialogue and how much are those relations important for individuals and institutions?
A critical way of thinking means to recognize the object of interest, to analyze concepts and phenomena of practicing and to indicate their position and the position to which we refer by comparative position. You see, in XVIII century the fundamental criteria of art academies was “technically good”, in XIX century the main topic was the “authentic or genuine beautiful” and in the early XX century the value criteria was built around innovative (new, modern, contemporary). Later on the criteria multiplied to utopian, projective, utilitarian, conceptual, including even anti-value criteria in Dada and Neo-Dada. A critical understanding and critical action is one of the values acquired through artistic work at school nowadays.
Regarding self-criticism, this is an old category of practical poetics. Roughly speaking: the artist who wants to make a progress must be ready to submit his own work to analysis and thereby to critical understanding.
An especially interesting part of this lecture for me was you speaking about the concept of the platform:
Professor comes and he reveals the truth of life to you from his great experience, he speaks about what real life and real art are, how is real art created, felt and displayed, and thereby he sets all the rules you have to respect in the most rigid way without verbalizing any rule. This is what might be called atmosphere or discourse in Foucault’s terms.
What is the platform and how is it connected with ideology and politics?
Platform is a term similar to the term paradigm (according to Thomas Kuhn). Platform denotes the set of beliefs, knowledge, modes of artistic and theoretical work, the way of setting up and solving the problems, posed by an individual or a group (class, team). Most artists have a platform, but this platform is neither conceptualized nor reflected. Modern education is based on training the student-artists to reflect, perceive or critical develop his platform.
Politics is the way to form a social relationship. We can distinguish between macro and micro-politics. For example, the formation of relations in an art class at the art faculty is a micro-political practice. In this sense, every practice is in its certain aspects political, i.e. it is political in terms of establishing relations with other platforms or construction of a meta-platform. Ideology is a complex concept. In a simplified Althusserian manner, ideology is the way in which the individual presents himself in becoming a subject both to him and to the others. The platform can be ideological dispositive.
Does denial and/or non-transparency of the platform existence affect the process of art education? How vital is it for an institution dealing with artistic education to have a clearly defined platform?
There is also a possibility for such an institution not to have a platform (e.g. The Düsseldorf Academy had a platform of having “expensive” professors; at one point the teachers were very successful and well-known artists who did not share an artistic platform in any other way eg. Beuys, Becher, Rilke…). After all, your Academy (FFA) does not have such kind of a platform. Broadly speaking it is modernist/postmodernist, and those are the terms that could both include or exclude anything.
I believe that the school must have one specific or a few different platforms, and that such a platform(s) should be conceptualized as in nowadays (when I say nowadays, I think in the last 150 years), the institution that has not reflected its platform and its own position as such only produces problems. To put it in other words, nowadays a professor, an artist, or a student, who wants to make a progress in his work, needs to see his/her position and what is the goal he/she is trying to achieve. It is about both taking responsibility and getting into what is called a transparent discourse, or a discourse in which you know what the message is as well.
One of the great modernist myths is that you get some kind of special value through pedagogy, and that means a trace of genius, which can not be expressed and showed – you simply get it with your maturing (because the artist does not educate himself, the artist matures until he becomes able one day to realize his masterpiece/work). But, there are no such things as masterpieces, there are only works that one particular system of culture, art system, eventually economic system, sets and brings into play of the important works. This does not mean that they are necessarily bad works, but the question of criteria for good and bad has remained very complex today, as it was 500 years ago. In other words, it is crucial to have permanent reflection of the school working modes, its theoretical, aesthetic, technical and, eventually market goals, ie. to be aware of the target group artists are being prepared for. If we, for example, establish a school that is solely based on the tradition of conceptual art, by doing so we are not making a school where the students are focused on the art market, but on one type of what is called cultural work (culture worker) instead. These are completely different target points being discussed and school should somehow be aware of that fact.
Otherwise, you get people who do not know where to go when they leave school. It does not mean that all artists should be theorists, but it does mean that they should have certain tools and instruments for making some sort of theoretical reflection or theoretical gesture.
Could you, please, make a comment on the platform or the platforms existing in the institutionalized art education in Serbia?
In Serbia, there are a finite number of educational platforms at art schools and they are mostly related to the canonical modernist ideals of open craft and individual creativity. Art schools have a long and slow path of emancipation ahead. I would not further discuss this topic, as it would be long enough to make a sizable book.
How would you comment on the canonical correlation between artistic institutions of higher education in Serbia and the modernist ideals of individual creativity?
You have an interesting fact, after World War II when academies, now faculties were established, they were established in the key of socialist realism. A large number of employed professors back then, who were the ones who come out of the war or those who were there before the World War II, have embraced socialist realism, but brought with them so-called moderate modernism or (the most characteristic in Serbia) intimism. With the first crisis of socialist realism, when Yugoslavia broke with the Soviet Union something, that would be called the reconstruction of modernism, socialist aestheticism, socialist modernism, and the strongest current tied around the ideal of intimism, began to develop, which means that the great masters of pre-war art were able to transfer their learning to the first post-war generation. In this sense, art schools were established as modernist schools with all the characteristics and qualities carried with the socialist modernism and tradition of moderate modernism (there the word moderate modernism meant between figuration and abstraction). That is somehow a scheme. This scheme existed without major postures until the early 80ies. Even the appearance of conceptual art, which seemed like a criticism of the Academy, remained exterior and outside the Academy. What happened with the 80s is the emergence of postmodern and so-called return of sculpture and painting in the 80ies, which in a certain way was related to the late modernism or late moderate modernism of the Academy. In this way the language of postmodern is integrated into the Academy as soon as the end of the 80s, during the 90s and 00s, and it was linked to the reskilling, reconstruction of technical resources in the scope of the postmodern ideology and mechanisms in some way. In this sense, the Academy is established around this postmodern ideality of fetishist work of art, which was associated with both different themed contents (mean figuration and abstraction), and that reskilling in the eclectic way, which means reconstruction of techniques, skills and knowledge, in now modernized way, and for this the best example is the new sculpture as such.
That’s what this school canonically set, but it is not explicit canon, you do not have it written anywhere, it exists as a kind of tacit knowledge through which the school survive and exist. So, actually part of conceptual thinking or part of the experimental opinion is only sporadically connected to parts of individual artistic practices of certain lecturers, and some projects that have occurred through this transmediality, which should introduce a different kind of canon from modern/postmodern.
On the other hand, each school sets its own canon, even when the transmedial work is to be established it be canon as well. The problem is not whether there is a canon, but whether he was brought to the speech and the possibility of analysis and discussion. The moment you start to teach someone you are creating a canon, but the problem arises when you say that such a canon does not exists – I teach you the truth about art, I teach you what you feel. In a way, the task of the proto-theoretical, theoretical, conceptual or discursive analysis of the art school is to show that there is a canon and what are its scopes and its conventions and ways of functioning.
Of course, the possibility of the self-education always remains. What is your opinion upon it?
Self-education is an important aspect of any educational process. Knowledge is not received as a gift, but it is acquired through hard work, self-critical research of our own work and relationships with time and contexts in which we live and act, and the struggle for recognition of modernity.
One can speak of two types of self-education:
– Self-education as a supplement or an aspect of regular education, where you are looking for your platform in relation to the offered academic platforms,
– Self-education as a form of self-organization outside the school context. Yes, this is an important approach, as students or former students are taking responsibility for their own process of learning and knowledge sharing. I strongly support self-organized self-education in the process of education or subsequent independent work. Creating context and milieu of work, i.e. platform is now an integral aspect of every artistic practice.
What would be your advice for young people willing to devote a couple of years of their life to artistic education?
Advices can sometimes be useful and sometimes not. I would rather use the term proposed platform to explore art education:
– I would read a couple of books on the subject. Today there is a diverse literature on contemporary art education and it is associated with the so-called “educational turn in art”;
– I would visit websites of a number of elite international schools, and I would analyze their platforms, protocols and procedures;
– If I had possibility I would attend summer courses at art schools, institutes and galleries, talk to students and lecturers, and analyze. I would interview them orally or in writing;
– I would make look-up tables, which shows comparative methods of performing arts education;
– I would try to make different school models working with colleagues here and in the wide world.
But what the most important thing is – you have to start from the assumption that art is not only making/creating an artwork, but a complex process of learning, research in areas which are not only artistic (politics, cultural studies, media research, forms of communication in everyday life and life in the art world, curatorial work, theoretical work, activism, etc.) as well.