Document
> Final text - English Summary by Aurelien
Document
>Final text - English Summary by Aurelien
Document
>Final text (French)
Document
> Rapprochement entre l'École supérieure des beaux-arts
et la Haute école d'arts appliqués de Genève
Rapport du groupe de travail
> Begins with English Summary by Aurelien
Document
> A PROPOS D'UN RAPPROCHEMENT ENTRE L'ESBA ET LA HEAA
>Begins with English Summary by AurelienDocument
>Dialog between Daniel Buren and Jean Nouvel (excerpts)
>Begins with English Summary by Aurelien
Transcript
>Session 3, AurelienTranscript
Something like an english summary
>Session 1, All members
Getting near to the end of my studies in this school, I can see a lot of different questions and doubts coming back. It is true that working in an art school is nothing easy, because it is very hard for us students to take some distance with the conditions in which we're working. The kind of freedom that is given to us (that is especially true for the first year) is often a strange kind of freedom to everything, that means we can choose the subjects and the references and so on. The only limit, in the end, is the frame itself. And as Claudia said, we're free to go anywhere but the way is marked, that means the frame doesn't give any walls, but if we don't follow the way we're just lost.
Maybe this relation of dependance and freedom is typical of an art school. Any way, better than to be free in relation to everything (that means nothing clearly defined, that means nothing), is the idea of identifying the dependances with the institution, so that we can try to set a certain freedom in relation to the Institution. The actual fight beetween the student's association and the direction ad interim is related to this question in many ways, and the first point is maybe the question of autonomy.
Much has been said about the autonomy of the art world, but it seems to be "on the table" again. The students' association wants to fight against the overcontrol that the HES is going to have, and for that they claim the importance for the school to keep its autonomy. The direction ad interim also wants the school to saty as independent as possible, but here it is the method that is different. For one side, one should let the direction negociate with the HES for this independance, and for the other one should fight for this independance by the threat of the students' opposition to the "HES entering" process. Of course it is not possible to know today what those two strategies will bring.
What is interessant, is the fear by the students' association that the school would get too close to an economical dependance, and that the "Beaux-Arts" would get too close to the "Arts Appliqués". There is still this idea that art can't survive to the question of its useness, and that the "pure" or the "free" creation must stay away from economical reasons. But of course it is not true that the school doesn't depend on economical reasons, nor is true that both financial and political pressions can't reach it. With or without the project of bringing the two schools closer, what the "groupe de travail" proposes is a "better possibility for social insertion", that means more contact from the school and from the students with the "outside world".
And what is feared with those contacts is a threat to the "pure" and "free" creation, as if there has ever been existing something like that. Maybe it could be useful to clarify the idea of autonomy from the idea of independance. In a way, the autonomy of the art field is nothing else that an exclusive dependance to the art "agents", that is as much art historians and artists ..., that the "mécènes" and any person or enterprise or state that is bringing money to this field. So this autonomy (if it does exist) doesn't mean at all an independance to economical and political pressions.
More useful is something like an independance of the mind, which is more an ideal goal than something accessible, but it is of course possible to try that direction in an art school, for the students as for the teachers. This position would be the negociation with Institutions and with persons, with the "inside" and the "outside", and the benefit then is a self-conscious position, in opposition with a refusal to identify dependances.
So the question here is, on one hand, can "school-art" survive in contact with the outside?, and on the other hand, does it affect its independance? The conférence with Daniel Buren and Jean Nouvel is interesting for that, especially when Buren speaks of the museum as the place of a specialised discourse. His doubts are about the possibility for art to go out of the museum, because it needs a specialised approach. The context of the work of art is much more an institutional context than a formal architectural one, and this is maybe what Nouvel doesn't understand, because he proposes that architecture could be the "réceptacle" for art out of the museum. The point here is probably that an art work cannot go out of the institution, cannot dialogue with the "outside" if it is not the result of a negociation from the beginning. There are tons of works made for the outside but with the same public that in the museum, or, as a commando, in a mission and ready to come back to the museum (f.a. :as documentation).
But to bring some fresh air, in the "art world" as much as in the "real life", would mean to keep building bridges beetween the two, to multiply approaches and collaborations and negociations and contacts (with people / Institutions / communities / groups / ...) and so on. So, as a conclusion, my point would be to say that, if we must beware from the HES, it would be important not to confuse autonomy and independance, and not to fight for old ideologies. What is funny here, in the case of the students' association, is that in a way they defend an idea of autonomy and ask for their dependance to the teachings (in opposition to a dependance to the HES), and in an other one they proove their independance by defending their position against the opinion of the direction ad interim. So, for my part, I don't agree with what they say, but I think it is important that they can say it, and when they ask for a public debat, then they have all my support.