Page 29 - Studio International - November 1972

Aspects of art education 2

Gear's view, the initiative must come from the relevance in a teaching situation. They are in two days a week. Perhaps the students
community and not the Art and Design Centre. some cases disheartened by the necessary themselves will conduct the course. They are
It is interesting to note that many staff avoid compromises they have made to achieve certainly sceptical of the intentions of their
living in Birmingham if they can and security and a reliable income, once the elders and betters. Art Theory entails a
disagreement over part-time evening classes prospects of success on the national and concentration on the techniques of logical
strains relations with the city council. international stage have receded. The weak] analysis, into the terms of which art
Birmingham offers a post-graduate year in and hesitant figures which they cut during the propositions are transformed and tested. It
both painting and sculpture. Derek Southall, sit-ins (except for the part-timers) made them follows that students who specialized in this
the Senior Lecturer in Post-Diploma Studies, lose credit in their own eyes and weakened their area are unlikely to have a folder of
who has run the course since its inception a few authority. It is ironic that the educational aims conventional artifacts for their assessments.
years ago, left in July and his place has been which they currently embrace derive in effect To judge from correspondence this year with
taken by Tony Underhill. It is too early to from the events that weakened their position. the NCDAD, it looked in some quarters as
predict what sort of changes he will The uncertainty which undermines the if Plummer was seeking confirmation that
introduce. Southall insisted that a clear line positions of members of staff is not only a written texts would not by themselves be
should be drawn between Diploma and Post- question of educational aims and/or a crisis of admissible. However, after negotiation, it
Diploma work. 'The course gives you a chance personal or artistic identity. It is also reflected in turned out that they would be and Plummer
to come to terms with the indoctrination of the the varying policies which are adopted towards claims the credit for this victory, since he raised
previous three or four years of art college full- and part-time staff. Even when allowances the matter in such a way as to ensure a
training', he told me. He cultivated an are made for local variations, it is probably more conclusion satisfactory to the Art Theorists.
egalitarian bottega atmosphere where the course difficult for an artist to find part-time teaching In the event they did well and were all
tutor was simply a primus inter pares. posts in the Midlands than it was five years ago. awarded good second-class honours.
The examples of Birmingham and It is all the more important to find a full-time The letter of protest concerning the
Wolverhampton (to step back for a moment job and avoid unnecessary risks. diminishing role of conceptualism at Coventry,
and draw some general conclusions) show that To return to fundamental educational which was published in Studio International
within a framework of broadly similar principles, there are those who argue for a (October, 1971) included the signatures of most
educational principles, there can be wide firmer and more rigorous approach than at the students in the Fine Art area, many of whom
divergences of academic practice and staff two Polytechnics so far considered. The were personally unsympathetic to Art Theory.
attitudes. It is also evident that the ideals of Fine Art department at Coventry is a case in Plummer feels that the significance of the
structural flexibility and the breakdown of point. Members of staff, and in particular letter, although serious at the time, was
categories are given a mixed reception and when Terry Atkinson and the Art-Language group exaggerated, on the grounds that 'students
put into effect produced mixed results. which briefly dominated the scene a year or will sign anything'. But those to whom I
This is partly because of ingrained traditional so ago, wanted to offer a disciplined talked (by no means a representative sample,
attitudes and financial and administrative alternative to the easy habit of laissez-faire. but introduced to me by the Dean) believe that
problems, but also, I suspect, because in some Robin Plummer, the incoming Dean of the the administration is playing a waiting game.
hands these ideals are, quite simply, too Faculty of Art and Design who took up his When the last 'Art Theory' generation
idealistic. That is, they frequently derive from post a year ago, is widely credited with graduates, work in that field will silently be
good intentions rather than the specific dismantling the Art-Language course, and at wound up. According to this interpretation,
requirements of individual students. the least permitting the sending away of the the authorities are practising a real-politik of
As for 'personal development', the courses at part-time conceptualists, or, more precisely, public assent and secret demolition. Plummer,
Birmingham and Wolverhampton (and, to the non-renewal of their contracts. Nevertheless, however, categorically denies these suspicions.
some extent, as we shall see later, at Coventry on this general point, both he and Art-Language Whichever side is telling the truth is perhaps
and Nottingham) offer a wide degree of are in agreement. 'I think the object of the less important than the objective probability
effective freedom. This is, of course, a course should be to study the fine arts, not to that Art Theory at Coventry is on the way out,
consequence of new thinking about educational produce artists', he told me. if only because it is difficult to find people
and aesthetic aims. But not entirely so: visitors What then is the current policy of the course ? willing to teach it.
to the leading Midland Diploma shows will It is hard to say, for the new régime has not yet Other new developments include a
have been struck by the amount of self- settled in and strong undertones of conflict reorganization of the five Art and Design
indulgent and slack work on display. It may be between staff and students still persist. departments into four. As far as Fine Art is
that there is something rotten in the state of Different sources offer contradictory glosses. concerned, an internal working party whose
English art, but a more plausible explanation is As far as Art Theory goes, there is to be no terms of reference were to re-define the
that a deterioration in the relations between change, claims Plummer. It will continue to educational aims of the course
staff and students and in the concept of an art receive the same (if not more) support as in the recommended a two-term common course
college as a community of shared interests has past. This may very well be so and Terry where freshmen spend equal amounts of
led to a collapse of critical standards. Atkinson confirmed what the Dean said; time in four different areas — painting,
This deterioration can be traced back, in the however, it is perhaps relevant to observe that sculpture, art theory and print-making Its
first instance, to the events of 1968, but they he was unwilling to answer my questions purpose is diagnostic and careful readers
should also be seen in the larger context of an except in his presence. More significantly, how will realize that we have returned to the much
(apparently) fragmented artistic tradition and of is one to interpret the undoubted fact that the travelled territory of 'personal development' and
the continuing economic difficulties inherent in Art Theory teachers have been decimated ? the 'breakdown of categories'. The course as a
an artist's career. Artists in their middle age are Only Atkinson and a local part-timer are left. whole is project-based (group and
out of sympathy with the aspirations of the And now comes the news that individual) and the tutorial system lays
young and their technical skills have lost their Atkinson himself is planning only to teach emphasis on the year tutor.

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