A couple of Fridays ago, I attended the Biennial As School Symposium at The Cooper Union. The event was introduced by the Dean of Art, Saskia Bos (ex De Appel) and moderated by Walid Raad of The Atlas Group. The invited artists/professors/architects included Liam Gillick, Anton Vidokle, Liam Boris Groys, Nikolaus Hirsch, Martha Rosler, Jalal Toufic, Anton Vidokle. The intention of the symposium was to discuss the roaming European Biennial Manifesta 6’s latest incarnation, which is to take the form of a school on the island of Cypress. What seemed like an interesting take on the modern day biennial, art education as apposed to art dictation, I began to feel as though it was just adding to the art school clutter. Although one good thing about this new school is that it’ll be temporary and utilize only existing spaces. I suggested to the panel that instead of creating a new school why not propose a “bridge” idea to connect existing schools? Can’t a dialogue on contemporary art be established between the existing institutions even if they’re curriculum doesn’t center around artsince there are no art schools on Cypress? This would, for one, help integrate the biennial within the existing society. As an ex-student of one of the many art schools in New York, I noticed that there wasn’t much sharing of ideas between schools. I guess, for the most part, that ideas are one of their main assets. I was lucky to have roommates from the other art schools in New York so I occasionally did get to see what other schools were doing and thinking. Liam Gillick, artist and critic of sculpture in Columbia University’s MFA program, (who was already fired up by some comments made by Martha Rosler’s in reference to methods in teaching art made and comments from Wangechi Mutu about Columbia University’s unspoken goal of graduating “Art Stars” for the sake of increasing enrollment in their program,) shot back in a very belligerent way, “Why should we build bridges, so we can fight on them?” A follow-up might have been futile, so I stayed quiet and then the next question was asked. I believe earlier in the discussion he also mentioned how he is Irish and “always ready for a good fight.” I should have expected his response given his pugilistic attitude.

Manifesta 6 will take place in Nicosia, Cyprus
from 23 September to 17 December 2006.

Manifesta 6 School
European Biennial of Contemporary Art
Corner of Pentadaktilou and Tempon Streets
P.O. Box 21015, Nicosia 1500, Cyprus
www.manifesta6.org.cy

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