Page 16 - Studio International - October 1966

What kind of art education?

Our September issue carried interviews (One might argue that all problems can be solved education is on the move, it would seem, and only
with Richard Hamilton, Professor Misha intellectually so no new problems need be introduced ; the cynical would describe its route as a passage from
one might also argue that no complete problems can Paris via New York to Carnaby Street. But the truth
Black and Sir Herbert Read in which they
be solved intellectually, only plans for their solution is that art education is chasing its own tail, its pro-
answered questions about art education. can be sketched.) gress is circular and the fault is not difficult to find.
Richard Hamilton favoured an art education The 'undisciplined' expression of feeling becomes Fine art and design teaching in most establishments
which stressed thinking rather than feeling : part of a 'discipline' 'when its products are subse- is style-based and object-oriented ; where it is not
am concerned with producing people with quently seen clearly, understood, and transformed. downright reactionary and antiquated it is merely
(See Read's eighth remark.) Only the most primitive makeshift and fashionable. However much principals
good minds, who are capable of seeing
kinds of therapy are content with the immediate and department heads try to amend their staff with
society as a whole, trained to think construc- satisfactions of release. the latest camp stars or vogueish celebrities, or slurp
tively though not necessarily productively'. The artist who lets his own problems become rep- sherry with ad meg and engineers, the present tedious
Misha Black advocated schools of human resentative of others' problems finds in his creation and grotesque wastage of talented students will con-
ecology out of the university framework equal means to cope with himself and to delight or tinue and will deteriorate until such time as their
instruct others. ancient ideologies based on Ruskin or Itten are
separated from fine arts and not craft based
One must ask: what kinds of thoughts and feelings abandoned and they come to terms with our transi-
industry. Sir Herbert Read also supported are activated by a work of art, and are they important tion to a cybernated society.
'the creation of this kind of school and kinds ? The institutions of fine art (especially'schools) It is true that some attempts have been made to
advocated the abolition of art schools. He give their members (both students and teachers) a restructure art teaching in the recent past. The Basic
preferred the idea of schools in which rare kind of freedom. If a person is free, is he free to Design Course of the fifties, although now somewhat
fill any role not filled by those less free than himself? of a period piece (and therefore practised almost
painting, sculpture, music, theatre and
Unless he has knowledge of what is going on, and everywhere nowadays), was never-the-less a real
dancing, all took place uninhibited by the resources (machinery, materials) for action, his free- attempt by Pasmore, Thubron and others to break the
examination system. dom is illusory. For both reasons, Fine Art (as well as stranglehold of tradition and caution. It appears that
The following are among the many com- Design—see Black's second remark) ought to be Misha Black and Richard Hamilton are also concerned
ments we received on these interviews. taught in universities: incorporation, not abolition to change methods and attitudes, or at least to follow
Other comments will be published in our (see Read's tenth remark). the example of Maldonado and Bill. And it is ironic
Incorporation, however, is a long term aim and that Sir Herbert Read's theories are discussed and
November issue. although it opens up possibilities of integration it examined from Germany to Japan, but almost totally
does not guarantee that these possibilities will be ignored in any effective sense over here. But the fact
from Ken Adams, who studied fine art exploited. is that marginal experiments can come to nothing
at the Slade School of Art, and is now without the possibility of radical re-organization in
working on an experimental cartographic from Roy Ascott, the painter, who taught art education. Moreover Hamilton and Black speak
from comparatively cosseted environments of Ivy-clad
project at the Royal Academy and at Newcastle University and from red brick and they are fortunate and privileged to be
teaching at St Martin's School of Art: 1964 to 1966 was head of the Fine Art spared the obscene cut and thrust of London Educa-
Department, Ipswich School of Art: tion Authority-based art education; we expect rigorous
The following brief comments concentrate and daring experiment and research from the College
on just one aspect of the three interviews— My interest in the remarks of your three and from University Art Departments since they have-
the autonomy and conditions required. The extent
the relation between rational discipline and distinguished art educationists is not so
to which they disappoint us depends upon our per-
the expression of feeling—and this with much in what they have, to say: which
sonal standards and vision.
especial reference to fine art. While covers some rather well- worn ground, but In art education generally there is a cultural malaise
important points are raised in the inter- in your purpose in publishing them. I of some consequence, obscured temporarily by the
views with both Read and Hamilton, both assume this to be a concern to initiate razzle-dazzle of a mythical swinging scene. But the
interviews give me a one-sided impression. debate and discussion, which is laudable, current vitality of student work cannot be sustained
indefinitely (nor can their art be expected to develop)
Re Hamilton's first remark: one should but it must, I fear, be pursued without much
by a moderate and false programme of studies,
think most hard about what one feels most optimism. For the established and en-
deficient in every demand of this half of the twentieth
strongly about, and one can feel most clear- trenched administration of art education in century. For our technology and science, our per-
ly about what one has thought most hard this country is such as to encourage end- ception and experience, were never wider or richer
about. If a split has occurred and art has less discussion but to inhibit radical change; than now. The potential for the future is even greater—
and education, in art and design as in everything else
wrongly been identified with unthinking attitudes can be voiced but vital action is
feeling, then those to whom this has hap- rigorously suppressed. —should be for ten, twenty years hence, and not
merelytomorrow. Cybernation, mollecular biology and
pened and those who wish to teach those to There is an insidious complacency in art education the behavioural sciences alone are bringing about
whom it has happened will look for ways of which the recent charade of Summerson investiga- developments in human evolution which call for
reintegration, for the right kind of 'therapy'. tions has done little to dispel; indeed some insiders radical change in all education processes and not the
would argue that it has served only to reinforce it. mere modification or restyling of old methodologies
(See Hamilton's eighth remark.) It would not,
To the casual observer of the situation changes are such as, for example, the quaint specifications of
I think, be sufficient to redress the balance taking place: new buildings, new terminology in new Dip.A.D. seem destined to effect.
by 'introducing problems which can be solv- glossy prospectuses, more facilities and more im- In my paper to the Association Internationale de
ed intellectually'. mediate impact on Bond Street and in industry. Art Cybernetique, Behaviourist Art and the Cybernetic
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