Social Practice

Just when I thought it was safe to talk about free universities or free schools, having just posted about the Mountain School of Art to the SoPr blog, and through my ongoing research into the history of alternative education for the FREEB event December 10, not to mention witnessing Matthew Rana’s fiendishly engaged skype, instant message, dialog with Jon Rubin, founder and creator of the art project/school the Independent School of Art, I get an eflux email about another Free University as art project, the Night School at the New Museum an artwork by Anton Vidokle.

In the case of Anton Vidokle who is famous for launching and running eflux, this interest in free universities is tied closely to his involvement as one of the 3 curators, with Mai Abu ElDahab and Florian Waldvogel of the ill fated Manifesta 6 (2006), a biennial that before its cancellation was meant to be transformed into a temporary art school (read the letter from the curators here http://www.e-flux.com/shows/view/3270). His most recent project The United Nations Plaza as well as this current project Night School have both been attempts at continuing the temporary art school concept that was left incomplete with Manifesta 6.

But with all of these projects, from the mountain school of art, to the Independent School of Art to Night School, I question why all this fervor over free schools as art works. Is this going to be another art movement, I hope not, although I am sure someone is working on the book right now. Or should I assume that artists are purely interested in other more democratic forms of education. But is the democracy of a schools formation not challenged or replaced by a hierarchy, by emphasizing the school as an artwork or a school produced by an artist(s). Would the dubiousness of an artist(s) as figurehead or the claiming of the educational institution as artwork detract from the freedom and real role that students might feel in shaping the school. Can a school really be a school if it is called an artwork? Does this decription change its efficacy and if not then what does it do?

Anthony
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Night School at the New Museum: application deadline December 15

New Museum
235 Bowery
New York, NY 10002
http://www.newmuseum.org

Benji Okuda instructing a life drawing class, an adult night school group at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center, Heart Mountain, Wyoming. Image courtesy of the National Archives, Records of the War Relocation Authority, 1941-1947.

Night School is an artist commission in the form of a temporary school. For this project, artist Anton Vidokle is organizing a yearlong program of monthly seminars and workshops that use the New Museum as a site to shape a critically engaged public through art discourse. Night School takes place on the last weekend (Thursday-Sunday) of each month, January 2008 through January 2009.

Night School is comprised of eleven seminars organized around three thematic tracks. The program begins with three series of seminars, workshops and film/video screenings conducted by Boris Groys, Martha Rosler and Liam Gillick that examines possibilities for progressive cultural practices. During the spring and summer months, the focus of the program turns to artistic agency today, and includes seminars with Walid Raad & Jalal Toufic, Paul Chan, Maria Lind and Owkui Enwezor. The fall program considers self-organization in the field of cultural production, presenting seminars and workshops with Rirkrit Tiravanija, Zhang Wei and Hu Fang, Natascha Sadr Haghighian and Raqs Media Collective. All topics will be addressed from the perspective of ongoing research and production, and as such will constitute the core structure of the school. Lectures, screenings, and conversations will take place in the New Museum theater, the 5t h Floor Museum as Hub space, and informal locations throughout the
local neighborhood.

In the tradition of free universities, many of Night School’s events are open to all those interested to take part. A core group of 25 participants will be selected by application, to participate in additional private workshops and discussions, and will be offered complimentary New Museum membership for one year. The Night School is now accepting applications from cultural producers including visual artists, architects, writers, filmmakers, journalists, curators, composers, performers, and others who can commit to participating in the full program throughout the year. Accepted participants will be expected to attend all monthly seminars and be present in New York for the duration of the project. To download an application form, please go to http://www.newmuseum.org/events/night_school
Application deadline: December 15th, 2007.

Night School is the second in a series of art projects organized around a temporary school format and initiated by Anton Vidokle. Vidokle initiated research into education as site for artistic practice for Manifesta 6, which was cancelled. In response to the cancellation, Vidokle set up an independent project in Berlin called Unitednationsplaza–a twelve-month exhibition as school involving more than a hundred artists, writers, philosophers, and diverse audiences. Located behind a supermarket in East Berlin, UNP’s program featured numerous seminars, lectures, screenings, book presentations and projects including the Martha Rosler Library.

Founded in 1977, the New Museum is the first and only contemporary art museum in New York City and among the most respected internationally, with a curatorial program unrivaled in the United States in its global scope and adventurousness. With the inauguration of the Museum’s new, state-of-the-art building at 235 Bowery on December 1, 2007, the New Museum will be the destination for new art and new ideas.

For further information please write to nightschool@newmuseum.org

for more information on the FREEB event, click here

Matthew,

Prompted by your email I have been thinking that we need to evaluate the links between Metal music and social practice. I think metal might be the perfect musical style as it looks to give voice to the dark, taboos and mysteries of mankind. I think Dio really said it best “Between the velvet lies there’s a truth that’s hard as steel”.

Here is a link to the album frail words collapse by As I Lay Dying. They are I think what you would refer to as “New Metal”. Pretty rediculous music but good for practicing with your nun-chucks or cleaning your bathroom.

Best,

Anthony

http://socialpractice.org/uploads/As I Lay Dying.zip

Designers Vincent Fichard and Matthew Jones (couldn’t find a website for them) created alternate road signs in Dubai last month. View the video documentation on YouTube.

It took a few days to make the signs, and a week to shoot, we had over a hundred people reacting to them and they’re still on the streets of Dubai. The wording is in Arabic and English; and the style of the signs are exactly like the construction/info signs you see all over town. [via itsnicethat]

“The Mountain School of Art concerns itself with the development of various academic programs designed as a supplement to those offered by the established art schools, teaching more tangible aspects of art, developing a different, but complimentary, point of view. These topics include law, science, production methods and problems, the commercial art market, relationships with galleries, etc…striving towards unconventional approaches to intellectual, aesthetic, and cultural questions.” (1)

Recently I took a weekend trip with California College of the Art’s first year MFA class to Los Angeles to view galleries and museums there. This trip was organized by the Dialogs and Practices class (a class described as a forum for introducing students to the cultural practices of artists, and arts professionals in the Bay Area, California and beyond, through their work and working methods.) to convey a feel for the art scene(s) of Los Angeles. We saw 4 museums, at least 20 galleries and 2 artist-run spaces. Though many of the exhibitions and artist projects we visited were interesting it was actually a space that I never saw (since class was not in session) called the Mountain School of Arts (MSA), which seemed most complex in its approach and effect on the LA scene.

The MSA is a free school founded by the artists, Piero Golia and Eric Wesley in 2005. To paraphrase from the MSA’s somewhat vague website, the function of the school is to contribute to the cultural history of Los Angeles through the establishment of a tuition-free art school for artists which acts as a fixed cultural center point for artistic discourse within the ever striating fabric of the limitless city of LA.

The program is structured into one, 3-month semester per year beginning in January through the first week of April. Classes take place 2 or more times a week at night from 6 to 9pm in the unglamorous backroom of the Mountain bar in Chinatown (hence the name the Mountain School). The program supports 12 or more students, both local and international who are selected from a pool of applicants (2). The MSA also provides lodging and studio space to the out of town students. Some examples of these classes are; “Sustainable Articulture: how to grow an art practice”, by Michael Darling, assistant curator, moca; “Law & Art”, Eric Wesley, artist, Lonnie Blanchard and Carl Wesley, lawyers; and “Topics in Science & Technology”by Stefano Campagnola, a researcher at Caltech.

Having heard vague and often conflicting descriptions of this school from a number of artists I decided to use this trip to LA as an excuse to find out more about the MSA. I began this search with China Art Object, a gallery in Chinatown, whom I had heard was closely related to the school. There I asked the gallery attendants Meghan and Anna about the school. Both Meghan and Anna were quite familiar with the school though they were pretty unclear on the content and structure of its classes. They told me that the school was funded partially by Steve Hanson an artist and one of the co-owners of both China Art Objects and the Mountain Bar (3) . Significantly the two artists who founded the school are representing by China Art Object. Meghan and Anna also told me that next month there would be a show at China Art Object of the art of the recipient of the MSA’s Martin Kippenburger award, an award presented to the student who drank the most beer during the semester. It was unclear how this was measured. There is an interest in beer due to the programs location above a bar and perhaps its happy hour class meeting time causing many of these classes to be relayed through pints of lager.

I was then referred to Wendy Yao the owner of Ooga Booga an art, clothing, zine, book and music store also in Chinatown, who had taught a class at the MSA. Wendy described the school as really interesting though slightly chaotic. Wendy said that the school though begun as a kind of alternative to art school was recently, due somewhat to its growing notoriety, trying to broaden its student body to incorporate a more diverse group.

Since Wendy had only really been involved once in the school she suggested I talk to Sara Clendening the director of Jack Hanley gallery. Sara was not only a 2007 student but was also reputed to be the girlfriend of Eric Wesley and could therefore provide me with a more privileged perspective. Sara told me that for her the experience was pretty unusual. The first class was a talk by Dan Graham to which 200 some odd people showed up. Dan played punk records on a record player and narrated them for an hour. She said the students were dissuaded from talking about their art. They did not make art in class, though they did read artist writings and would discuss them. The class would also go on field trips to such sites as “Black Pussy” a spectacular and vulgar kind of nightclub/cabaret as sculpture by the tragically deceased artist Jason Rhoades, which was run out of his studio before his death.

The MSA it is not a phenomenon individual to LA (4) there are other free schools in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Berlin, Sweden and elsewhere. But there is something specific in their choice to meet within an underground yet semi public site of a bar and the power in their intentions to inform artists with other disciplines. Piero Golia one of the founders has commented on the site of the school by stating, “This situation interested us since it is similar to the secret societies in Europe that were fighting for national liberation two-hundred years ago.” (5)  There is something undoubtedly revolutionary about the notion of a free school but with art it is hard to tell whether the above statement is a statement of nostalgic fetishization or a provocation of actual purpose. Within this increasingly dark political moment me I hope for the later.

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1. The Mountain School Of Arts Website, Objectives http://www.themountainschoolofarts.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4
2 Applications for the 2008 program are available on the Mountain School of Arts website. http://www.themountainschoolofarts.org/2008/MSA%5E_2008_APPLICATION.pdf
3. It is also funded by the Netherlands Consulate in Los Angeles, BeLA Foundation, the Croatian government, Gai (Associazione Giovani Artisti Italiani), the Goethe Institute and 1+1=3.
4. In fact the MSA is 1 of 2 free art schools in LA that have emerged within the last five years, the second being the Sundown Schoolhouse.
5. Holy Mountain – Los Angeles, “Flash Art News - Flash Art Online” 2005. http://flashartonline.com/Archivio/riv_246/news_2.htm