Critical Thinking Expelled from an Art School. The case of the Art Academy of Latvia

November 23, 2015
Author Mētra Saberova
Published in Tribune

Comic 1

What would one expect after graduating from an art school? Leaving aside more complex questions about what an art school nowadays should and could be, let’s assume that an essential part of art education is the process itself and that the school should not be accountable for everyone not creating a masterpiece at the end. At the same time one would be right to ask the school to have given him/her some necessary tools for the various ways of thinking about one’s practice, to be able to assess its relation to that of others and how could one move it forward. In short – one would expect to be trained in the use of critical thinking both in the creation of artworks and in their contextualisation within the broader frame of culture. These were also the things I mentioned as my aspirations in my study proposal when applying for an MA degree in another school, another country, because these three things I most certainly did not get while studying at the Art Academy of Latvia. I love my Academy and I am grateful for all the support from my tutor there, but further on I will argue that the lack of critical thinking in the Art Academy’s teaching process encourages the production of art practices that do not employ critical thinking in creation and presentation. And that, yes, that is a bad thing. The need to include a note of respect toward the Academy is another example of the intolerance against criticism, as it is not seen as a proper tool to be used in the search for improvement within the Latvian art circles but rather as a marker of dissatisfaction and even personal failure of the critic. Though I have to use examples from my own practice to shed light on the problematic points within the teaching system, I am arguing that these issues affect us all. My main focus is on the Painting Department which could be seen as one of the least developed of all the departments but it does share its characteristics with other disciplines as well.

The staff’s own personal preferences is pretty much what constitutes the bigger portion of how evaluation at the Academy takes place.

For my degree show to acquire a BA at the Art Academy of Latvia in Fine Arts with a specialisation in Painting, I had exhibited two short videos, two paintings, one of which had additional objects accompanying it, two object installations and, finally, one interactive installation. After my (necessarily) short backstory for the creation of the works, the tutor who was responsible for supervising my progress during the creation of the final degree works, did not say a single word about the topics I explored in my works or even the works themselves, leaving all seven of them undiscussed. Instead he focused on explaining to the rest of the jury panel that I was one of the few who had still been interested in painting the models for the study assignments, which of course was a good thing. Not that it came as a surprise to me. I had already grown accustomed to the uninterested, even dismissive, attitude toward the realization of such an art practice that aims to deal with topics that require engagement and critical thinking. How much of that engagement was done when evaluating the works I will not know. The evaluations happen behind closed doors – literally, and no, we do not acquire a detailed report sheet afterwards, in case anybody’s asking. The same applies to the assessments at the end of every semester. It comes as even a bigger surprise when one knows that a couple of years ago the short discussions about the grade for the mid-term works happened in front of the student, but the road toward improvement somehow went in the direction of the jury staff going into their little cabinet, and only afterwards the students would get to know their grade. Thankfully the close-knit art community of Latvia is mirrored in the informal atmosphere at the Academy and there are no restrictions regarding independent discussions with your tutor in order try to find out their opinions at another time. That does not mean that one will get an in-depth analysis of their work, though. One of my current tutors mentioned a member of staff at Falmouth being fired after his use of an expression such as ‘’It does not have enough fizz’’ which apparently was the last straw added to whatever issues the school had with him already. The expression was used in evaluating a student’s work, meaning that no critical reflection was applied and the staff’s own personal preferences were held as a standard for evaluation. Well, the staff’s own personal preferences is pretty much what constitutes the bigger portion of how evaluation at the Academy takes place. With this I do not want to suggest favouritism on the staff’s behalf, but rather use it as a way to introduce the fact that students are not expected to create works that would actually require anything other than simple like/dislike reaction, works that could be critically engaging.

We are coached to add value to our works instead of creating value, a value that could stem from the idea of the work not just as an afterthought, a tick in a box. Therefore socially engaged works will be seen as created just for the effect of provoking a reaction, disregarding the particular issue that they were created to deal with.

The Academy can be famed for its strong emphasis on academical skills in drawing, painting and sculpting. However, the compositional assignments do not request students to use the medium to create something beyond its basic aesthetic value – something that could have a meaning other than the employment of the skill behind it. Experimentation with materials basically ends with a lesson in the use of household paints and, as an additional treat, the use of such an inventive under-frame shape as a circle – as if the relatively new shape was a satisfactory reason in itself for bringing a new object into the world. Students are not asked to research, think and discuss what the borders of the frame itself mean in the world perceived by sight and how the medium can encapsulate the rich history behind its use. Instead we are shown examples of artists from elsewhere who use these reconfigurations of materials – simply because the artists are relevant somewhere. By exercising the skill of addition to our works we too can aim to approach a global significance. We are coached to add value to our works instead of creating value, a value that could stem from the idea of the work not just as an afterthought, a tick in a box. Therefore socially engaged works will be seen as created just for the effect of provoking a reaction, disregarding the particular issue that they were created to deal with. As an example I present the phrase that was used by the staff to describe me taking up volunteer work at the only Latvian LGBT organisation – that these were ‘’lesbian courses’’, and I also received a supposedly supportive comment from someone ‘’also having experimented while in college’’. The topics of feminism and queer theory were just bundled up in a neat pile of ‘’women’s issues’’.

The bar of expectations is lowered to accommodate the students, not to enhance their practice.

Should one think that these questions could be raised in the theoretical classes – they could, but they are not. There is a minimum of extra credits that a student must get to acquire the diploma and unfortunately they are not encouraged to get these by taking up additional theoretical classes from other departments that could broaden their perception of what is practice and how to contextualise it. What is more unfortunate, when joining the courses intended for students in the Art History Department, one is left with the same incompetency of critical thought and engagement characteristic of the practice based courses. In my second year of studies, I should not have been the best student among the fourth year Art History students in a class of their own curriculum. And again, by handing in a paper for Art History, written in just three hours before the deadline, it should not have been praised as being as good and even better than some of the research done by Art History students in their final year. The bar of expectations is lowered to accommodate the students, not to enhance their practice.

Consequently, a want for theoretical backup for the work is seen as a failure of the work itself and its lack of visual strength.

Intensive discussions, both written and verbal, are a must to develop the capacity to explain and present your work. However, the students are shunned for talking too much – too much being more than a couple of minutes or even a minute – when discussing their work, as not only the work should speak for itself but, as mentioned before, the basic assumption is that the artist should not base the creation of the work on anything other than its visual representational effect. Consequently, a want for theoretical backup for the work is seen as a failure of the work itself and its lack of visual strength.

All of this might mean nothing to a strong individual who will not stop at the barriers placed in front of them and will carry on with independent research anyway. I applied to another art school and I am not the only one to have done so. A more pressing question for the Latvian art scene would be whether these people will return. And, even more importantly, what will happen then. For the sake of argument let’s assume that these people have acquired a better education elsewhere and have improved and so on. But it is not enough, even if correct, to simply bring something back into the same environment that lacks not only the tools for creating critical work but also the tools of critically receiving these works. Otherwise we get one of the two art portals dedicated to Baltic art headlining its article simply by stating that the Latvian artist Ivars Grāvlejs has brought an exhibition of famous Czech photographers to Latvia.((The sub-header of the article states: ‘’Ivars Grāvlejs brings an exhibition of famous Czech photographers to Latvia.’’ http://www.arterritory.com/lv/zinas/archive/3/ A different title appears after clicking on the article; the sub-hearder served only as a surrogate headline. http://www.arterritory.com/lv/zinas/4934-vai_tas_ir_smalks_humors,_vai_vini_tiesam_ir_divaini/ Accessed on 22.11.2015.)) Should the readers take the value of the exhibition for granted because the photographers are famous or because they are Czech – i.e. from abroad? Is that how we are taught to critically assess information and the artworks themselves? The contributors to the art news portal are not people who are not connected to the Latvian art world. They are among its constant creators. They should know better how to present information and how to present value. Nevermind whether the artists are good or not, the case of questioning it should not be set aside by simply marking them as famous. The consequences of this dismissal of critical thought extends to the professional art world, which is yet another topic, but these issues are irreversibly tied together and they bear responsibilities toward each other which should be kept in mind by all of the practicing artists out there.