Jacques Lacan's Conception of Desire in a Course on Psychology of Art for Fine Arts Students

Jacques Lacan's ideas have produced deep changes in the psychoanalytic field and have also had great influence on several disciplines. Our interest here is to question what the theoretical and practical implications of adopting his conception of desire would be in contemporary art education. To explore this issue, we divide this essay into three parts. In the first, we look at some of Lacan's views on education; in the second, we seek the contributions made by Lacan to the notion of desire in psychoanalytic discourse; finally, we present an example of the process of introducing Lacan's ideas about desire into a course of Psychology of Art for Fine Arts undergraduates at the University of Barcelona. The purpose was to facilitate the recognition of the students' own desire, both in a pedagogical relationship and in their lives.