Art students (called Brian) observed
Feb. 19th, 2009 11:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusMy next working trip abroad happens at the end of March, when I fly to Norway to give a lecture on my work (March 31st) at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts. I'll also spend a day doing studio visits with the students there, something I've only done once before (at SVA in New York two years ago) but find deeply interesting.
It's one of my great regrets that I never went to art school. I did plan to apply for Central St Martin's in London when I was 18, but somehow let my literary side sway me, and went to Aberdeen to do EngLit instead. I think I'd have ended up doing the same thing -- making pop records, art, books, journalism -- if I'd gone to art school, but I might have done them slightly differently. I might have been a bit less Leonard Cohen, a bit more Brian Eno.
Talking of Eno, I've been re-reading a fascinating book I have in my collection, Art Students Observed by Charles Madge and Barbara Weinberger (Faber and Faber, 1973, out of print and worth $224.58, according to Amazon). This is a sort of thorough, empirical, sociological study of art students at two British art schools at a very interesting moment, the late 1960s (a moment when, as the book says, anti-art became the approved art, bringing all sorts of paradoxes to the fore). I find it fascinating that such a subjective thing as developing an art practice can be studied so objectively, but then I find it amazing that art can be taught at all. The book shows the tutors and students circling each other with wariness, coolness, misunderstanding, despair, appreciation.
There's a central section of assessments of individual students by staff and by the observers. No punches are pulled. "Liz is a stolid, puddingy student of consistent attitudes and a plodding work style. Mediocre certainly...", one begins. "Pam is a stubborn person who is capable of resisting advice or tuition, but not to her advantage," says another. "A neurotic student that adapts defensive attitudes." Students and staff are both given pseudonyms, and we're not told which art college this actually is. We do learn their final degree results, though: Pam gets a 2:1, Liz a 2:2.
The most interesting case study, for me, is a guy called Brian. It's very hard not to think that Brian is Brian Eno, who went to two different art schools at about this time, Ipswich and Winchester, graduating in 1969. As reported by Lester Bangs, "Eno enjoyed tinkering with multi-track tape recorders and in 1968 wrote the limited edition theoretical handbook, Music For Non Musicians. During the same period he established Merchant Taylor's Simultaneous Cabinet which performed works by himself and various contemporary composers, including Christian Wolff, La Monte Young, Cornelius Cardew and George Brecht. This experiment was followed by the formation of a short-lived avant garde performance group, the Maxwell Demon. Eno graduated from Winchester School of Art, where he studied painting, in 1969. But he "started playing with lights at the same time as I started playing with sounds - in my mid-teens," he says. "By 1975 I was deep into making records, and hardly touched any of my lighting experiments until I moved to New York in 1978."
Now let's look at the Brian in Art Students Observed:
Tutors' reports, 1968-69
Brian works hard and I believe he is seriously committed to his type of work, ie electronics. However he is adolescent in many of his attitudes and displays a smugness bordering on obdurate philistinism when it comes to dealing with areas outside his immediate province. He will have to grow up before he will be able to use his expertise towards art rather than be a small-time boffin. (Gibson)
Gives the appearance of knowing what he is doing. He may very well know what he is doing. He is certainly capable of working out precise technical data, and his awareness of his "objects" in this sense is good. What I wonder about is his general awareness of how his work relates to "Art". I get the impression sometimes that he is inclined to take up an "avant-garde" posture. In terms of describing what his work is technically, he is very good, but I am not sure how he means it! A little inclined to "strut". An interesting student. (Coutts)
From the observers' notebooks:
October 13th, 1967. Brian laid his radio-lightwave machine out along the studio. Everyone who walked in front of it interrupted transmission. Philip became interested, helped him fiddle about with the equipment. It reminded me of boys playing with electric trains.
February 14th, 1968. Brian is working upstairs in the staff studio because he needs a white wall. He has made some electronic equipment which operates so that the wall changes colour as you move towards it. He told me that painting is his hobby -- he does it at home! I asked what sort of painting. He said the sort of thing you see in Boots reproductions, mostly meticulous drawings of cars and machinery which he does because he enjoys it and not with any sort of irony. A couple of weeks ago he did a drawing of the sun, taken from Hokusai. Watson told him it was rubbish. Stone told him to go and do some life-drawing, which he took as a very critical remark, so he decided to keep this type of work as something that he does at home.
February 15th, 1968. Watson, Dyer and Brian had a long discussion about Brian's electronic machine. Watson had got Brian a grant of £17 towards building the machine. Brian had come up with some snags and intended to present his work in the form of a written report. Watson argued that this was not good enough; he would learn something by not only producing the machine, but in assessing the effects of its operation. Dyer said now that Brian had proved that the machine was operational there was no point in actually making it. Watson said to me afterwards that Dyer was basically an engineer and that Brian had to decide if he was an engineer or an "artist". Brian had finally accepted his point of view that the machine would have to be finished and operated.
November 28th, 1968. Brian gave his history of art talk. He said his work was a visual representation of his thoughts on cybernetics. He took the class into the lecture hall, turned off all the lights and played some records. Asked why he had presented the lecture in this form, he said it would have taken him at least three hours to explain his ideas on cybernetics, even supposing the others could understand it, but that the performance was a failure because he had not announced that it was about cybernetics and therefore people had not been thinking about them. (He seems rather arrogant in his assumption that no one can understand what he is concerned with -- he takes his ideas very seriously.) Abbot (in charge of history of art) took the event seriously at its face value and asked questions about its meaning and purpose which Brian was not prepared to answer. She agreed that Brian had learnt something from the feedback (or lack of it) from the event, and that it would be valuable if he did give his three-hour lecture on cybernetics next term, perhaps to the whole school.
February 14th, 1969. Brian told me he had reached a sort of crisis. He hasn't been able to work for the last three weeks and spends his time reading. This was partly due to Gibson's project at the beginning of term. Brian had come back to college with lots of ideas but the project had thrown him off course, he said.
Brian ended up getting a lower second class degree. I wonder what he's doing now?
It's one of my great regrets that I never went to art school. I did plan to apply for Central St Martin's in London when I was 18, but somehow let my literary side sway me, and went to Aberdeen to do EngLit instead. I think I'd have ended up doing the same thing -- making pop records, art, books, journalism -- if I'd gone to art school, but I might have done them slightly differently. I might have been a bit less Leonard Cohen, a bit more Brian Eno.
Talking of Eno, I've been re-reading a fascinating book I have in my collection, Art Students Observed by Charles Madge and Barbara Weinberger (Faber and Faber, 1973, out of print and worth $224.58, according to Amazon). This is a sort of thorough, empirical, sociological study of art students at two British art schools at a very interesting moment, the late 1960s (a moment when, as the book says, anti-art became the approved art, bringing all sorts of paradoxes to the fore). I find it fascinating that such a subjective thing as developing an art practice can be studied so objectively, but then I find it amazing that art can be taught at all. The book shows the tutors and students circling each other with wariness, coolness, misunderstanding, despair, appreciation.
There's a central section of assessments of individual students by staff and by the observers. No punches are pulled. "Liz is a stolid, puddingy student of consistent attitudes and a plodding work style. Mediocre certainly...", one begins. "Pam is a stubborn person who is capable of resisting advice or tuition, but not to her advantage," says another. "A neurotic student that adapts defensive attitudes." Students and staff are both given pseudonyms, and we're not told which art college this actually is. We do learn their final degree results, though: Pam gets a 2:1, Liz a 2:2.
The most interesting case study, for me, is a guy called Brian. It's very hard not to think that Brian is Brian Eno, who went to two different art schools at about this time, Ipswich and Winchester, graduating in 1969. As reported by Lester Bangs, "Eno enjoyed tinkering with multi-track tape recorders and in 1968 wrote the limited edition theoretical handbook, Music For Non Musicians. During the same period he established Merchant Taylor's Simultaneous Cabinet which performed works by himself and various contemporary composers, including Christian Wolff, La Monte Young, Cornelius Cardew and George Brecht. This experiment was followed by the formation of a short-lived avant garde performance group, the Maxwell Demon. Eno graduated from Winchester School of Art, where he studied painting, in 1969. But he "started playing with lights at the same time as I started playing with sounds - in my mid-teens," he says. "By 1975 I was deep into making records, and hardly touched any of my lighting experiments until I moved to New York in 1978."
Now let's look at the Brian in Art Students Observed:
Tutors' reports, 1968-69
Brian works hard and I believe he is seriously committed to his type of work, ie electronics. However he is adolescent in many of his attitudes and displays a smugness bordering on obdurate philistinism when it comes to dealing with areas outside his immediate province. He will have to grow up before he will be able to use his expertise towards art rather than be a small-time boffin. (Gibson)
Gives the appearance of knowing what he is doing. He may very well know what he is doing. He is certainly capable of working out precise technical data, and his awareness of his "objects" in this sense is good. What I wonder about is his general awareness of how his work relates to "Art". I get the impression sometimes that he is inclined to take up an "avant-garde" posture. In terms of describing what his work is technically, he is very good, but I am not sure how he means it! A little inclined to "strut". An interesting student. (Coutts)
From the observers' notebooks:
October 13th, 1967. Brian laid his radio-lightwave machine out along the studio. Everyone who walked in front of it interrupted transmission. Philip became interested, helped him fiddle about with the equipment. It reminded me of boys playing with electric trains.
February 14th, 1968. Brian is working upstairs in the staff studio because he needs a white wall. He has made some electronic equipment which operates so that the wall changes colour as you move towards it. He told me that painting is his hobby -- he does it at home! I asked what sort of painting. He said the sort of thing you see in Boots reproductions, mostly meticulous drawings of cars and machinery which he does because he enjoys it and not with any sort of irony. A couple of weeks ago he did a drawing of the sun, taken from Hokusai. Watson told him it was rubbish. Stone told him to go and do some life-drawing, which he took as a very critical remark, so he decided to keep this type of work as something that he does at home.
February 15th, 1968. Watson, Dyer and Brian had a long discussion about Brian's electronic machine. Watson had got Brian a grant of £17 towards building the machine. Brian had come up with some snags and intended to present his work in the form of a written report. Watson argued that this was not good enough; he would learn something by not only producing the machine, but in assessing the effects of its operation. Dyer said now that Brian had proved that the machine was operational there was no point in actually making it. Watson said to me afterwards that Dyer was basically an engineer and that Brian had to decide if he was an engineer or an "artist". Brian had finally accepted his point of view that the machine would have to be finished and operated.
November 28th, 1968. Brian gave his history of art talk. He said his work was a visual representation of his thoughts on cybernetics. He took the class into the lecture hall, turned off all the lights and played some records. Asked why he had presented the lecture in this form, he said it would have taken him at least three hours to explain his ideas on cybernetics, even supposing the others could understand it, but that the performance was a failure because he had not announced that it was about cybernetics and therefore people had not been thinking about them. (He seems rather arrogant in his assumption that no one can understand what he is concerned with -- he takes his ideas very seriously.) Abbot (in charge of history of art) took the event seriously at its face value and asked questions about its meaning and purpose which Brian was not prepared to answer. She agreed that Brian had learnt something from the feedback (or lack of it) from the event, and that it would be valuable if he did give his three-hour lecture on cybernetics next term, perhaps to the whole school.
February 14th, 1969. Brian told me he had reached a sort of crisis. He hasn't been able to work for the last three weeks and spends his time reading. This was partly due to Gibson's project at the beginning of term. Brian had come back to college with lots of ideas but the project had thrown him off course, he said.
Brian ended up getting a lower second class degree. I wonder what he's doing now?
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is vivien westwood inspired by imomus fashion?
Date: 2009-02-19 10:56 am (UTC)Re: is vivien westwood inspired by imomus fashion?
Date: 2009-02-19 11:18 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-19 12:26 pm (UTC)those instructors and observers were pretty harsh. reading the comments makes me think that it must have killed those people to give compliments. i go to art school and have received and witnessed harsh critiques, but most of the stuff you posted from the book seems like too much negative feedback and not enough constructive criticism. the comments about brian were a little better and more thorough.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-19 12:35 pm (UTC)Re: is vivien westwood inspired by imomus fashion?
Date: 2009-02-19 12:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-19 01:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-19 01:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-19 01:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-19 02:49 pm (UTC)I wonder who led in university art degrees: the U.S. or Europe? I know that all of the artists up until the Pop artists did NOT go to university. But at the same time, the academy system was broken after Impressionism. Did artists use mentors?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-19 03:08 pm (UTC)Sounds as if going to Aberdeen was a very wise choice indeed.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-19 03:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-19 03:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-19 04:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-19 05:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-19 05:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-19 05:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-19 06:58 pm (UTC)Art school Momus
Date: 2009-02-19 07:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-19 07:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-19 07:12 pm (UTC)That is simply not at all true. At least in the US and most of Europe art schools, academies, and universities have played a huge role in the art world. Looking up a quick list of big names of the art world in the first half of the 20th century and latter half of the 19th, almost everyone I could think of either graduated from a major art academy or university, and even the few exceptions seemed to have some institutional contact. Did I somehow misinterpret your statement?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-19 07:15 pm (UTC)By the way, does anyone know what degree the real Brian got? Was it a 2:2 like this Brian? Anyone have that big Eno biography? Joe, weren't you reading that recently?
Re: Art school Momus
Date: 2009-02-19 07:19 pm (UTC)I'd really like to see this BBC Four documentary (http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/timeshift/art-school.shtml), by the way, but it isn't on any file-sharing sites (the one on Prog Rock, in the same series, is).
Re: Art school Momus
Date: 2009-02-19 07:33 pm (UTC)[Error: unknown template video]
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-19 08:28 pm (UTC)I mean that art academies were basically trade schools. The MFA seems to be a post WWII convention. From what I can tell by reading biographies, MFAs took off sometime after the war, since no artists seem to have MFAs before that.
That's what I mean by "professionalization." Yes, everyone went to some art academy, but now an MFA is practically a necessity for an art career (for various reasons, just as professional artists of the past needed to go to particular art academies).
I'd love to see a modern Bourdieu do an in depth sociological look at the art world, art schools, and the cultural creation of artists.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-19 08:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-19 09:05 pm (UTC)From my own experience, I've noticed that artists from working class backgrounds or below are almost non-existent in the art world. My guess is that is the result of the dominance of the MFA. A working class kid would have to start selling work right out of grad school in order to pay off his loans, otherwise, they'd have to pursue a different career. There are a few exceptions, of course, but not many, from what I've seen.
That said, the current art world is really inclusive, except for the extreme socio-economic class issue.
One not really realted thing...
Date: 2009-02-19 09:08 pm (UTC)comic bookgraphic novel departments pop up through out the U.S. college system. It'll only be a matter of time before a degree is, for all practical purposes, necessary in order to get a comic published. Right now, on the contrary, it is remarkably hodge podge.That said, I'd love to teach kids about comic books when I'm old.
Hickey
Date: 2009-02-19 10:03 pm (UTC)rodcorp
Re: Art school Momus
Date: 2009-02-19 10:19 pm (UTC)Re: Art school Momus
Date: 2009-02-19 10:31 pm (UTC)Re: Art school Momus
Date: 2009-02-19 11:00 pm (UTC)Re: Art school Momus
Date: 2009-02-19 11:14 pm (UTC)Re: Art school Momus
Date: 2009-02-19 11:26 pm (UTC)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Aberdeen
And having good students spread across a wider range of schools than just "Oxford/ Manchester/ KCL etc" is probably better for the educational system and society in general than having them all squished into a few cramped places. (Assuming Young Momus was a good student, of course . . . .)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-19 11:49 pm (UTC)********> Cybernetics and early Eno
The feedback loop is THE primordial concept for control in
cybernetics (or Operation Research, Systematics, Whole Systems).
At some point in his early days, while playing with recorders,
Eno discovered that the complex tape-loops he was building in the
music making domain were an exact representation (in the real
world) of a cybernetic machine.
For example, the diagram on _Discreet Music_ shows a canonical
cybernetic system.
Therefore, Eno realised, any results or conclusions reached or
attaigned in OR would/could/should map _more or less_ perfectly
unto his music construction projects.
His best insight then, IMHO, was not only that he could use the
results of cybernetics to build better machines for making music.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-20 12:22 am (UTC)When Eno talks about his art school years, he mentions the influence of Tom Philips and Roy Ascott at Ipswich, but doesn't have much good to say about Winchester (which would have to be the school involved, if Brian is our Brian).
"After [Ipswich] I went to Winchester," Eno told one interviewer, "which was a much less interesting college; better equipped, very much under the sway of the St Ives School, which at Winchester represented everything I didn't want. I very much developed my own course. One of the things that started to happen when I was there was that I was in touch with other students in other colleges. And if something interesting was going on in one of the other colleges I would go there for the week, and in fact became a sort of guest student at several colleges. At Winchester itself I used to hire composers and various people to come down and do things; George Brecht, Christian Wolf, a lot of interesting people who were around at the time."
Eno also mentions that he was President of the Students Union for a while, and ran the entertainments committee. The work he was doing involved tape recorders, light installations, and paintings made by lists of instructions.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-20 01:32 am (UTC)Brian. (no...)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-20 02:42 am (UTC)I didn't coco that it was the Mass Observation Madge, but it makes perfect sense; it's Art Students Observed, after all. I almost wrote in the piece that it was "in the tradition of Mass Observation", too! Anyway, an opportunity to link to my piece on Mass Observation (http://imomus.livejournal.com/63308.html)!
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-20 04:25 am (UTC)Perhaps charting an alternate life, like in the blogpost where Momus imagined the consequence of becoming a pop nabob.
So, since you missed art school, Momus, here it is:
By tuesday 23/2, everyone is to hand in a personal interpretation of the theme "Momus goes to art school". The assignment will be presented in the format of a mixed-media pop song, incorporating at least one of the classical techniques we have studied this semester.
Good luck.
-professor David
Re: Art school Momus
Date: 2009-02-20 08:45 pm (UTC)In the UK people often have a shortlist of four or so places they'd consider going to. I picked Manchester, KCL, Oxford for the question more or less at random. But I'd guess that all of them had good or excellent Eng Lit departments at that time (and today also).
And I wasn't suggesting that 'everybody' should go to these places to study.
Re: Art school Momus
Date: 2009-02-22 03:29 am (UTC)