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The Idea of Art School

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The Idea of Art School

A conversation between John Beck and Matthew Cornford

Writer and academic John Beck and artist and course leader Matthew Cornford investigate the history of British art schools.

There were once over 150 art schools in England and Wales. What did it mean for there to be an art school in every town? What happened to them, and why do they still matter?

'The Idea of Art School' is a talk by John Beck and Matthew Cornford presenting their research on the sites and history of British art schools, exploring the relationship between changes in the art education landscape and broader societal shifts wrought by neoliberalisation and its symptoms of urban development, gentrification and austerity.

The institutions themselves may have already been earmarked for amalgamation or closure, but the idea of art school became, and to an extent remains, the preferred narrative formation, forever framing the antinomian energies of British youth as the innovative, state-funded, creative education environment.

John Beck

What has come to seem important to us is a broader disjunction between myths and history, between the persistent spectral fantasy of a thing called art school and the dismantling of the structures that allowed that fantasy to look, for a while, in towns and cities across the country, to take on an embodied form in the buildings, practices, habits, and values of institutions capable of sustaining creative communities in often unexpected places.

John Beck

1 / 7

Postcard of Derby School of Art. Courtesy of Matthew Cornford.

Postcard of Bilston School of Art. Courtesy of Matthew Cornford.

Postcard of Nottingham School of Art. Courtesy of Matthew Cornford.

Postcard of Walsall School of Art. Courtesy of Matthew Cornford.

Postcard of West Bromwich School of Art. Courtesy of Matthew Cornford.

Postcard of Wordsley School of Art. Courtesy of Matthew Cornford.

Postcard of Sunderland School of Art. Courtesy of Matthew Cornford.

And car parks seem to be one of the things that former art schools are now becoming.

Matthew Cornford

The cultural quarter model is geared to consumption and spectatorship, whereas the art schools alongside were about production and participation. The cultural quarter is a temporary stopping off point... The art school is anchored in the daily business of learning and making.

John Beck

About the talk

'The Idea of Art School' took place on 27 June 2018 and featured John Beck (writer and academic, School of Humanities at the University of Westminster) and Matthew Cornford (artist and course leader of Fine Art Critical Practice, University of Brighton).

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