{"id":436,"date":"2009-04-16T20:06:28","date_gmt":"2009-04-17T03:06:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp\/2009\/04\/the_mfa_20_years_of_schooling\/"},"modified":"2009-04-16T20:06:28","modified_gmt":"2009-04-17T03:06:28","slug":"the_mfa_20_years_of_schooling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/2009\/04\/the_mfa_20_years_of_schooling.html","title":{"rendered":"The MFA: 20 years of schooling and they put you on the day shift"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Sarah Thornton’s Seven Days in the Art World<\/i><\/a>:<\/p>\n

\nSince the 1960s, MFA degrees have become the first legitimator in an artist’s career followed by awards and residencies, representation by a primary dealer, reviews and features in art magazines, inclusion in prestigious private collections, museum validation in the form of solo or group shows, international exposure at well-attended biennials, and the appreciation signaled by strong resale interest at auction. More specifically, MFA degrees from name art schools have become passports of sorts.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Leslie Dick, the only writer with a full-time position in the art department at CalArts, told Thornton he asks students the following question:<\/p>\n

Why come to grad school? It’s about paying a lot of money so you can change. Whatever you thought was certain about how to make art is dismantled. You wobble. You don’t make any sense at all. That’s why you are here.
\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dave Hickey told her that he doubts the value of that process.
\n<\/p>\n

My one rule is that I do not do group crits. They are social occasions that reinforce the norm. They impose a standardized discourse. They privilege unfinished, incompetent art… If you’re not sick, don’t call the doctor…
\nI don’t care about an artist’s intentions. I care if the work looks like it might have some consequences.
\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m with Hickey on this one. Doesn’t Dick sound a bit like a cult leader? If you’re not sick, don’t call the cult leader. Paying a lot of money to study a collective version of the meaning of meaning might make sense in flush times, for those inclined. But for those who don’t have family money and are going into debt for the privilege, I think its virtues are overrated.<\/p>\n

I’ve been thinking about this since Todd Simeone opened<\/a> at the James Harris Gallery. Simeone was showing in Seattle before he got a BFA from the University of Washington in photography in 2005. By the time he left town to get an MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago, he was on the regional charts with a bullet, ready to hold his own in a larger context.<\/p>\n

He believes that graduate school helped him focus, and that may be true. What’s also true is that it appears to have (temporarily) killed his spark, his juice, the thing that made him singular – a commitment to imagery that makes an electric connection between audience and art, allowing them to rearrange and enlarge their understanding of the world of things.<\/p>\n

I also think, for someone like Simeone, interested in a progressive version of the landscape, there’s a lot more going on in that vein in Seattle than Chicago, where he is now and his Seattle dealer advised him to stay. <\/p>\n


\nEarly Simeone (My reviews here<\/a> and here<\/a>)<\/p>\n

1. Record Cover in a Flash (Air Supply)<\/i> 2006 Inkjet, 28×28 inches. <\/em><\/font>
2. Suitcase<\/i> 2003, Inkjet, 24×40 inches <\/em><\/font><\/font>
3. A Chart with Peaks and Valleys<\/i> 2005, Inkjet, 45×76 <\/font>inches
4. Six Ways to Roll Seven<\/i>, 2006, Inkjet, 14×14 inches.  <\/em><\/font>
5. Record Cover in a Flash (Temptation)<\/i>, 2007, 31×31 inches  <\/p>\n

\"CoverInAFlash.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>
\"simonesuitcase.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>
\"simonechart.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>\"simonedice.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>
\"SimoneTemptation.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>Current Simeone:<\/p>\n

1. Far Beyond<\/i>, 2009, gouache over Inkjet on Stonehenge paper, 22×30 inches<\/p>\n

\"SimoneFarBeyond1.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>Broken
\nwords over water. Words as eroded piers over water. It’s admirable, but
\nin Charles Wright’s image, it’s the spider’s web without the spider. It
\ncan catch, but it cannot kill.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Sarah Thornton’s Seven Days in the Art World: Since the 1960s, MFA degrees have become the first legitimator in an artist’s career followed by awards and residencies, representation by a primary dealer, reviews and features in art magazines, inclusion in prestigious private collections, museum validation in the form of solo or group shows, international […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-436","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}