If you want to be an artist do NOT go to art school. Or, if you are set on institutionalized education, then at least know the perils of thinking that art school will make you an artist. Here are just 5 reasons why art school is a very bad idea–though I am sure I could come up with more:
Facilities–If you think art school is the only place you can access amazing facilities, think again! Artists, studios, organizations, networks and collectives exist outside academic institutions. It will take you a little longer to navigate how they operate and what kind of access you need to support your work, but that effort will pay off in the long run. Attending art school where a multiplicity of facilities are open to you at all hours can cultivate a crippling dependency for your practice. Leaving the sheltered nest of academia has the capacity to knock you out of your practice before it even takes flight. If you are looking to build your practice in an emotionally, physically, and socially sustainable way, cultivate it within community networks and outside of the ivory tower.
Comrades– While it might be true that gathering artist is a little like herding cats or assembling raccoons, the truth is artists naturally build communities. Making art is inherently collaborative. The academic model is set up on values of colonial hierarchies, competition and scarcity, so even while you build communities in art school there will be a structure undermining your effort in collaboration and sharing. If you want to build authentic networks of artist communities, find them in your backyard. Artists are everywhere. Practices may differ and professional pathways might contrast, but in my experience the artistic process is inherently collaborative and finding your peeps who are local to you and show up to the table because they want to be there rather than need this for a grade, means you will find a lasting community to support your practice.
Professors–Looking back I would say I had many incredible professors, however, I did not move through art school without some wounds and witnessing others. I experienced bullying, witnessed racism, and at least in one class watched a professor cut weeks of lectures of contemporary theory by radical thinkers because he had spent too much time on Hegel, denying students access to powerful contemporary art theory. Professors have so much power. That’s because they are a critical part of an institution which functions to consolidate and maintain established hierarchies and produce individuals who excel in that context. Students are exceedingly vulnerable to this. It’s true that much of the world operates within the context of colonial capitalist hierarchies, however, becoming an artist is a vocational choice that has never only bent towards power. In fact, many artists have founded entire movements when they called out power structures and crafted practices in the liminal space outside established practices. Art school institutions represented by their professors will encourage you to explore and expose hierarchies of power–even their own–but they will not move and reshape themselves in response to your work. Don’t attend art school if you are looking to weave a different social fabric.
Opportunities– Ideologies of scarcity are rampant in academia. Whether it is competing against classmates for your grades, or the myriad of ways the university rewards only a fraction of its student population, or forces you to compete against other students for opportunities–by simply attending school you have entered a binary of win-lose. From the moment you enroll you begin learning your place in a trickle down economics of access and are forced to compete with your fellow classmates. This is normalized, but it doesn’t mean it’s helpful, or even ok. If you think art school is important because of the opportunities it gives you, I can confirm it will and does–but at what cost? If you lose your ability to nurture empathetic, cooperative and collaborative approaches to your art practice, what have you won? Instead of relying on academic institutions to reward exclusive privileges, find ways to cultivate opportunities relevant to your communities, in line with your values, in ways that nurture and support other artists along with yourself. Everyone benefits from that.
Critiques–crits are one of the most helpful and possibly the most detrimental practices in art schools. One of the most important ways for an artist to find, explore and express their unique artistic vision is in the generation of ideas and the practice of putting those ideas into a piece of work. With a single work or even facial expression, critiques have the capacity to sabotage ideas and visions before they are even fully born. Don’t risk art school if you value your voice. Go back to your community formed art comrades and practice engaging each other’s works. Ask questions, challenge each other, and give each other the care that is robust discussion. But don’t make your precious artistic voice vulnerable to the unrelenting structure of an institution that profits on privilege and scarcity. It’s not worth your emerging voice.
You are an artist whether you attend art school or not. Moving though any system is time spent practicing a certain skills determined by the structure those skills are relevant to. While being aware of the academic context of the art world is important for staying relevant, it is not necessary to move through that system to have art as your vocation–in fact your practice might be better off if you decide not to move through it.
Alexandra Ross Works 