What Do Artists Know?

Twenty Theses on What Artists Know

1. Artistic Research (Response to Section 4, artistic Knowledge, Part 1) 1.1. During the last decade the so-called Bologna Agreement has prompted many discussions and publications dealing with the academicization of art education , which, in my view, has led to an overvaluation of the concept of artistic research. 1.2. As yet, artistic research is a concept that provokes many critical questions . What form of research emerges in or through visual art? And if one can indeed speak of research through visual art, how does such research relate to the already established scientific-philosophical triad of alpha, beta, and gamma sciences? 1.3. Does the rhetoric of the concept of research indeed enable novel practices , or does it rather exclude and/or marginalize certain practices? Has the former opposition of art versus not-art perhaps now been replaced by a novel mechanism of exclusion through the opposition pair research-based art versus non-research-based art? Or does the different vocabulary of the research discourse point to an already existing practice which could be accommodated by means of a translation procedure in an academic architecture focused on knowledge production? 1.4. Artistic research seems to be a concept without any paradigm that can easily be deployed—because of its current or perhaps even intrinsic conceptual mode of diffusion—for a cognitive capitalism, that is, for a bureaucratic quantification ultimately developing in a technocratic, controllable form of obtained educative/research results in the realm of the current knowledge economy. 1.5. In brief: the assumption that the intended modular curriculum of the Bologna rules will entirely dissolve the problems of the introvert, predemocratic, nonagonistic model of master class education will turn out to be an illusion. In fact, what will happen is that a system focused on disciplining will be replaced by a system of control. 2. Artistic Thought (Response to Section 5, artistic Knowledge, Part 2) 2.1. In the light of such instrumentalization, the above-mentioned Bologna rules—or the introduction of the bachelor-master (BA-MA) system in art TWENTY THESES ON WHAT ARTISTS KNOW Henk Slager 00i-228_Elkins_4p.indb 200 9/14/12 1:18 PM assessments 201 1. See maHKUzine 9 (Summer 2010), http:// www.mahku.nl/research/mahkuzine9.html. 2. See Tables of Thought conference, Helsinki, April 2010 (www.e-flux.com/ announcements/tables-of-thought, [accessed July 29, 2012]). education—could ultimately have a positive and restraining effect. If a curricular , module-based model must be introduced in European art education, this will also necessitate a reconsideration of the specificity of art education, a reconsideration that will relocate the discussion on the academy where it belongs, that is, within the institutional framework of art education. And it was about time. For a moment it seemed as if the art academy debate would be claimed by curators and museums—see Manifesta 6 (2006) and Van Abbemuseum’s Academy project (2006–8). 2.2. In order to explicitly pose the question of the specificity of the academy, the Utrecht group called Artistic Research organized, along with the Brussels Sint-Lukas Academy, the Academy Strikes Back conference (June 2010). During this conference, which featured speakers such as Renee Green, Irit Rogoff, and Dieter Lesage, the issue of the art academy as research environment dominated the discussions.1 2.3. That issue clearly indicates that it is time to dispense with the ontological question, What is research? and direct ourselves from now on to the topological question, Where is research? Which institutional environments could qualify certain artistic practices as research? And what would that mean for how institutions position themselves as education and presentation platforms and how they relate to the topical debate in the professional realm? 2.4. This shift also indicates the necessity for a focus on what precedes artistic research, that is, what makes artistic research possible, including the investigation of modes of artistic thought, forms of differential thought, and thinking in multiple connections. A form of thought is needed that can manifest itself as research within an institutional environment by concentrating on, for example, artistic knowledge production. That form of thought, however, must at the same time be able to deform or deconstruct conceptual frameworks if thinking in terms of knowledge production becomes too restraining.2 2.5. The current debate on artistic research shows considerable parallels with the 1970s debate on semiotics—particularly as demonstrated by Roland Barthes. The tension between two focal points of the semiotic ellipse, that is, between...