The ambiguous virtues of art school

"The professionalization of art production –congruent with specialization in other post-capitalist industries– has meant that the only art that will ever reach the market now is art that's produced by graduates of art schools. The life of the artist matters very little. What life? The lives of successful younger artists are practically identical. There's very little margin in the contemporary art world for fucking up, accidents, or unforeseen surprises. In the business world, lapses in employment history automatically eliminate middle managers, IT specialists, and lawyers from the fast track. Similarly, the successful artist goes to college after high school, gets an undergraduate degree and then enrolls in a high-profile MFA studio art program. Upon completing this degree, the artist gets a gallery and sets up a studio.

Equal opportunity for white and Asian artists of both genders has ushered in a massive uniformity. It's best, of course, for the artist to be heterosexual and better to be monogamously settled in a couple. This guards against messy leaks of subjectivity that might compromise the work and throw it back into the realm of the ‘abject,' which, as we all supposedly agree, was a 1980s excess that has long since been discredited. If imagery of a sexual subculture is to be deployed, as in the work of Art Center graduate Dean Sameshima, it's important that any undercurrents of desire be cooled off and distanced by conflating homoerotic porn with the consumer-beauty-porn of fashion ads. Through this conflation, the viewer is led into that most desired state of neo-corporate neo-Conceptualism: the empty space of ambiguity, which is completely different from the messy space of contradiction. «Ambiguity,» wrote Dutch philosopher Baruch de Spinoza, seeing it all two hundred years ago, «is the kingdom of the night»." Chris Kraus, author, critic, and professor of film at the European Graduate School.

*The above extract has been excerpted from Chris Kraus' book AKADEMIE X: Lessons in Art + Life.

To read her full essay on Artspace click here.