Let me start by being totally honest—I am not an Yorker I have developed a skill for talking about a poet or an artist. You either are one or you aren’t.
artist. I don’t claim to know a huge amount about shit I don’t understand. I also happen to live and However, going to school can help you become a
art or art history (other than having read a few work with a variety of people whose livelihood better poet or a better artist…and maybe it helps
books and taken some art history classes in my depends on the making, selling, and discussion you figure out that thing that comes next. What
early 20’s). That being said, I do happen to live in of fine art. Many of these people (most of them, good is a graduate degree in the fine arts (other
New York City, a place where I am both wittingly actually) went to art school. than put off the need to find a real job while living
and unwittingly exposed to art all the time. I like safely in the non-reality bubble of academia)? Do
looking at art, I enjoy museums, I occasionally I guess I’ve always felt a certain kinship with the you need to to attend a high-powered art school
relish the feeling of urbane, intellectual chic that art student because I myself got an MFA in poetry, in order to become a successful artist? No. Does
comes with attending gallery openings and which is arguably one of the most ephemeral and it increase your chances of doing so? Apparently.
fundraising dinners. I like to think that I am potentially unusable degrees known to mankind.
intellectually curious enough to enjoy looking at As a master of the fine art of poetry I am qualified David Altmejd is a graduate of Columbia
stuff I don’t understand and then trying to figure to write poems (maybe), teach poetry (maybe), University’s graduate arts program and a successful
out why I understand it. Still, I’m about as and/or work at a coffee bar (probably). I would young artist. The Canadian artist makes ornate
qualified to talk about fine art as I am qualified to imagine that the kinds of discussions one is often sculptures that look like birds or werewolves or
riff on contemporary jazz or weigh in on the future forced or encouraged to undertake in a poetry giants and he is currently represented by the very
of physics (i.e., not very). However, being a New workshop (digressions and arguments about topics prestigious Andrea Rosen gallery in New York
City. When asked if he’d be likely to have this
same career had he not gone to Columbia,
Altmejd is quick to answer, “I very much doubt
it.” Still, the benefits of said education are difficult
to quantify. For every five or six students who
graduate Columbia and manage to quickly secure
gallery representation or sell work, there are at least
20 or so that don’t.
“For me, going to art school was a way for me to
get out of Montreal,” says Altmejd. “I had that
idea that in order to be a serious artist I needed
to go to New York. My work certainly improved
while I was there, but the biggest benefit was
meeting all of these different people. I’m not so
good at networking or making new friends easily,
so school was great for that. Art school, wherever
you go, is like this little window into the larger art
world. Without it, I would have no idea about
the bigger picture. I would never have met people
from the galleries. I wouldn’t have had a clue.”
“Having a peer group that’s also making art is
really invaluable,” says Matt Keegan, a fellow
Columbia grad and highly-touted young artist.
“A lot of people who I still call upon for advice or
for studio visits, as well as people who have
become friends, collaborators and mentors, all
come from the time I spent at Columbia.” While
many people might assume that high profile
programs such as Columbia’s are turning out
media-savvy artists armed with agents and lawyers,
the reality is much less maniacal. “We had access
to buyers and collectors via studio visits, but there
was never really any advice given to us about the
business of art. Like, how we should price our
work or how to deal with contracts. All galleries
and buyers operate so differently anyway…there’s
really no way to be truly prepared for that stuff
and ideas best described as frighteningly obtuse until you’re actually doing it yourself.”
Above, Carving Tools in Wood
and aggressively theoretical) would not be unlike
Shop, Museum School, Boston,
the kind of conversations that are commonplace As I talk to people about art school, two schools
MA, 2008. Right, Joey, student
in art school. (aka, the kinds of conversations not of thought—or rather, two archetypes—quickly
Right Page, Studio. Previous
likely to take place anywhere else in the universe emerge. The more cynical view casts the typical art
page, Critique Board other than art school) Group critiques are student of today as a savvy careerist, learning not
common and one on one instruction in your field- only how to hone his craft but also how to work
-whether it be sculpture, painting, textile design, the system. This student is a rabid networker and
or some form of performative weaving--even more a deft social climber who will emerge from his or
common. One learns critical thinking, lots of her MFA program on the fast track to a solo show
theory, and how to refine technique..and that’s and, art gods willing, impending gallery
probably about it. You can’t really be taught to be representation. The other, less ambitious student is
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