Artistic Praxis and the Neoliberalization of the Educational Space

Referring to the work of Richard Sennett, this lecture puts forth the proposition that art production is only possible when there is a correct relation between theory and artistic practice. A good artistic praxis can only be realized by incorporating theory in artistic practices. Based on empirical research, Pascal Gielen elaborates on a biotope that is the necessary precondition for a sustainable development of art. This biotope consists of a domestic, communal, market and civil domain. Within these domains, theory and artistic practice interact in different ways. In order to ensure the development of an artistic praxis, art education needs to maintain this biotope. The lecture demonstrates that policy decisions in Europe following the Bologna agreement regarding education do not make the task of higher education of arts any easier. Increased scale, increased bureaucracy, and neoliberalization of educational space threaten to counteract the integration of theory and practice, and thus tend to undermine the artistic biotope.

Pascal Gielen (1970) is director of the research centre Arts in Society at Groningen University where he is associate professor of sociology of art. Gielen leads the research group and book-series 'Arts in Society' (Fontys College for the Arts, Tilburg). He has written several books on contemporary art, cultural heritage and cultural politics. In 2009 Gielen co-edited the book 'Being an Artist in Post-Fordist Times' (NAi) and he published the monograph 'The Murmuring of the Artistic Multitude. Global Art, Memory and Post-Fordism' (Valiz). In 2011 De Bruyne en Gielen edited the book 'Community Art. The Politics of Trespassing' and in January 2012 their book 'Teaching Art in the Neoliberal Realm. Realism versus Cynicism' was launched. At the moment he is working on the monograph 'Creativity and Other Fundamentalisms' and on a reader entitled 'Institutional Attitudes. Instituting Art in a Flat World'.