feature LA ART schooLs
“The biggest
problem with MFA
programmes is
how insular they are”
own artistic practice – though he considers himself more architect than him, mistakenly, that his driver’s license had expired the previous August:
author – Wesley and Golia are adamant that the Mountain School is “Ma’am, it can’t be”, he says, “because I got it in October, so in August
neither a ‘project’ of theirs nor an art school, but an institution patterned I didn’t have it. And she’s like, no, it’s here on my computer: expired
on the university model and devoted to general education, with a August 16. And I’m like, OK, does your computer say that it was issued
curriculum grounded in science, philosophy and law. Wesley stresses in October? And she’s like, yeah, October 22. And I’m like, so, do you
this point multiple times in our correspondence, clearly wary of seeing have a brain to put your computer together?” He laughs incredulously.
the school featured in an art magazine. ‘The mission of the school “So that’s the idea of the school: stimulating thought. Obviously – thank
today is to diversify’, he writes in an email, ‘to break out of the constant God – we are not dealing with such tragic cases.
reference of art school or remain trapped in the “art world” where you “Our dream”, he continues, “is to become an encyclopedic
don’t have a chance at the “real world”.’ school, to put together a community that is not anymore just artists,
The school accepts around 15 students per year, half of them but that is… whoever. Like, if you want to become a better surgeon,
from outside the US, for a single three-month term (January through come and expand your mind. Look around. The more you look around,
March). Classes are held two nights a week in the back room of a bar in the more you learn in life. You know, if you go to work for a mechanic for
the gallery-studded neighbourhood of Chinatown, and tuition is free. a year, it doesn’t necessarily make you a better writer, but it helps your
In both administrative and financial terms, it is a shoestring operation: brain to keep moving. If you just do one thing in your life, you become
the faculty (a handful of regulars and a rotating – often spontaneous like a machine – and my driver’s license really will expire in August,
– roster of visiting lecturers) donate their time, the bar donates the before it was actually issued. So our dream is to cross the border.”
space and a sympathetic real-estate lawyer donates housing for the Though markedly different in the particulars of structure and
foreign students. The school’s wealth is in its contacts, which, despite personality, the Sundown Schoolhouse and the Mountain School
the founders’ aversion to ghettoisation, are particularly impressive in reflect what has long been a defining quality of LA art history: the
the creative disciplines (Paul McCarthy, Pierre Huyghe, Dan Graham, capacity of its players to look beyond the grip of categories, hierarchies
Simone Forti, Franz Ackermann, Christian Jankowski and Hans Ulrich and institutions. As the community shifts now into a position of
Obrist have all made appearances). The goal, however, is to have an unprecedented visibility, globally speaking, and its dynamics continue,
equally deep reach into all fields. inevitably, to codify, the need for such vision is only more acute.
To illustrate the dangers of narrow thinking, Golia – a chatty and
very funny Neapolitan who rarely gives a straight answer – recounts Sundown Schoolhouse,
www.sundownschoolhouse.org, the Mountain
a call he received from the Department of Motor Vehicles, informing School of Arts,
www.themountainschoolofarts.org
images
(in order of appearance)
Sundown Schoolhouse: Fall Session, 2006, morning movement in the dome
photo: mark rodriguez
Sundown Schoolhouse: Fall Session, 2006, meeting in the cave
photo: fritz Haeg
Dancing 9 to 5, 17 January 2007
The Whitney museum of american art at altria
photo: a.L. steiner
Sundown Schoolhouse: Fall Session, 2006, La tour in capes designed with andrea Zittel
photo: fritz Haeg
All images
courtesy fritz Haeg/sundown schoolhouse
73 artreview
LA SCHOOLS.indd 73 5/2/08 15:42:20
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