ST U DY W I T H US!
ART INSTITUTE IN BASEL
“What does it mean to study art?” We answer: to study art means to be in touch with art, with the materials and ideas that constitute it, and with an experience of the world that is unlike that offered by other studies. To study art means to engage as a companion with other artists – some quite young and some older than oneself. While the Art Institute offers numerous opportunities to ac-quire the skills and knowledge necessary in the field of art, it also asks you to combine your learn-ing with an active and questioning engagement with the materials, forms, and relations between media, from drawing to digital animation, from sculpture to photography, from performance to writ-ing. You enter the Art Institute with certain preferences and opinions, only to find yourself moving forward, curious about how these passions and decisions will develop and change in conversation with your teachers and peers. This development is at the center of the Art Institute’s program. At the same time you are becoming a practicing artist, you are becoming a curious, aware and social human being. But why Basel, why at the Art Institute? The Art Institute is quite a small school, only around sixty students are accepted for the Bachelor degree. This makes for a very particular climate, where the group relations and the relation to the teachers are carefully thought through. The core of the three-year studies is the Forum. There are three Forums with three teachers in each. Each group includes around twenty students and you can choose in which of the three you want to be. After a year, technically, you
Mediathek im Hochhaus der Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst FHNW auf dem Dreispitz Basel.
are free to change to another Forum, to another teacher’s constellation or to remain in your group. The Forum is the name of a space where you speak about your interest, where you can discuss and test your own views on the practice with others. You will encounter common ground with the other’s interests that will help you to better understand your own affinities, and you will start to develop your own lan-guage. At the same time, the teachers also contribute by individually helping each and every stu-dent to see where they are now and where they want to go. There are no subjects in the Forums, but questions that are key to understand art and art today. You will not be confronted with art histo-ry or the work of certain artists, but with notions such as form, media, experience, material, individ-uality that will provoke your thinking about other ideas and ways of addressing them in the actual work. The first year is a crucial one. For us, the most important issue is to help to create a context where you can start developing your interests in relation to others, in relation to your world and the world in bigger terms. Doing art, Speaking through Art: every student is provided with an atelier. It is very important to work and see others work. The ateliers of the Bachelor and Master students are very close, all in the same building and only a few meters from the offices and working space of the teachers. This is a very friendly environment, but also demanding. The institute really has a culture of becoming peers, of understanding yourself in relation with others in your generation. The atelier has several functions: it is the place for personal research and practice,
Ausstellungsansicht on site off space im Kunstraum Riehen 2014. Foto: Christian KnĂśrr.
Projekt Die sehns端chige Stadt im Stadtraum von Basel. Foto: Elia Navarro.
Writing Workshop. the laboratory for experiments and the place where many hundreds of informal conversations with others will happen. The relation with students from other years is very organic, Bachelor and Master students meet all the time. It is im-portant that from the very first year of your studies, you see where others are and get different nar-ratives about personal development. All these conversations are not „nothing“ – they are crucial for learning, and particularly for learning to speak, to narrate. To speak, even in silence or through your work, is encouraged in the Forums. Excursions to various different sorts of art exhibitions, from off spaces to art museums and collections, are scheduled, not only in order to get familiar with what is going on, but to learn how to pay attention to many different aspects of art today: from skills to economy, from gender to the social, from formal concerns to more free experiments. The Workshops: Since its opening in October 2014, the Campus of the Arts has offered not only one of the best varieties of workshops in different media and materials but a wonderful team of ex-perts to help you to become proficient in them and to explore new opportunities. We have two small workshops in the house: a digital Aula and a wood and iron one. These are meant for you to explore media but also to talk with the team about technical questions and doubts you may have at work. The larger central workshops are at a minute’s distance from your studios. There, large scale experiments can be attempted, and you can work on your more advanced technical skills. Wood, 3-D printing, metal, silk-screen printing, sculpture and digital sound and image can be explored in specially designed workshops, and there are tutorials to discuss more personal matters.
During their opening hours, the workshops can train you in certain aspects and you can also borrow mate-rial from our in-house digital Aula. During the Forum, the students are introduced to all of this. You get to know the teachers there, who may help you in developing the new works you will be producing and presenting at the Forum sessions. Excursions: apart from the day or half-day trips that you may be doing, the Forums organize one trip a year to a place and with a purpose that each group decides on individually. These trips are important to help you realize the differences between contexts as well as how different it is to spend time together at school and outside the Campus / Institute framework. Theory and Text and Practice: Understanding practice and the meaning of doing is very central to our Institute. We do believe in reading and in writing, but under the optic of an artist. This is not less of an effort than the more standard academic one! We therefore work very closely with our students to help them articulate ideas in many different ways. It is not the same to write an artist’s statement, to describe a work for a portfolio or an application use, or to express your thinking in writing that expands or contributes in another way to your work. The Art World (Kunstbetrieb): There is a specific seminar designed to help students come to terms with the questions of work, portfolio and self-
Studio at school.
presentation. We do not teach you how you should do it, we invite experts and professionals from the different worlds that form the art world, to bring you enough information to develop your own way. It is not only necessary to understand the possibili-ties of making a portfolio, but also the politics of it. During these sessions we also discuss how to document your work, how documenting one’s work has historically changed, how to use different media to do so etc. We address scholarships, residencies, and the different support possibilities, inviting people to present, but inviting you also to understand the complex mechanisms behind these structures. Also, we do budgets. We address money, production costs, material costs, the hours of work, the fees, how art making is a kind of production and, therefore, has an economy. Learning how to deal with and talk about money and exploring the difference between value and money is a substantial goal. Theory in Context: Every Monday there is a series of design classes under the rubric „Context“. They are mandatory and aim to produce a framework in which to place general ideas about art and also disciplines close to art. There you will meet not primarily our teachers, but teachers from other disciplines with questions on performance, public space, historicity etc. Not only art students attend these classes, they are open to all students on Campus. This is a great moment to learn more about the others on Campus and also about how different disciplines work, the way they address very similar subjects in a different way.
Exkursion von Studierenden nach Abchasien, 2014.
Digitales Studio. Theory weeks: Every year there is an intense block seminar on a subject matter that is speculative, where a guest presents a debate or a field of knowledge that we consider relevant. These weeks are there not only to give you information about ideas and currents beyond the scope of your im-mediate practice, but to make you understand that there is no separation between practice and thinking, that art practice is a form of research and that the exchange between more speculative disciplines such as science, philosophy or art theory and art has a long story and, more important-ly, high actuality. Reading, thinking, debating, questioning, wondering, being provoked, provoking, being lost, regaining a sense of what is said – all this is part of becoming familiar with the ideas of the world of today. Becoming close with complexity, seeing how thought and discourse shape art communities and networks, allows you to develop unfettered curiosity and a habit of searching for sources and materials that may end up informing your work, but are definitely relevant for your personal and social development. Text seminars: In this respect there are specific moments where your writing is addressed. You will be getting support to guide you through the different questions that appear when every one of us writes. Particularly, you will be helped to envision those reading you, as well. The practice seminars: These intense seminars with guests, scheduled to last over a week, hap-pen once a year. The focus is on doing, however particularly taking into account parameters of practice that need to be expanded, that were not as present in the Forums. These are perfect mo-ments to evaluate what you
Performance von Studierenden im Ateliergebäude der Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst FHNW. are doing, what others are doing around you at the school with ways of doing that may be surprising, different to yours and therefore a unique opportunity to confront a view from outside. These seminars are collective exercises in doing, able to really help you expand your art language, the relationship between media and the different formal and less formal ways artists use to produce their art. These inputs, together with the Forums, the many hours in studio and the personal and individual mentoring constitute a very solid axis to support you in your prac-tice. Art Talks: Every Wednesday we schedule an artist talk. More than fourteen talks happen every semester. They have less the character of a teaching session and more that of a private presenta-tion of work, work methods and concerns, from artists to artists. These talks introduce you to dif-ferent positions, from quite young to more mature ones, from well-known practitioners to alumni or freshly graduated people, from more local to international ones. The idea is that week by week you listen and discover how each artist addresses work, context and culture in a distinctive manner. The Art Talks expand the excursions and the idea of seeing exhibitions by giving an opportunity to hear how the artists themselves talk about them. Der TANK and the Projects: Der Tank is the name of the new exhibition space, a glass cube at the core of the newly opened Campus of the Arts on Basel’s Dreispitz area. It is called Der TANK for quite a simple reason. The institute team chose
Der Ausstellungsraum Der TANK auf dem Campus der Künste. a fish, the salmon, as a mascot or better as our emblem. The reason is obvious. The Rhine – the river that is at the city’s origin – was once the largest salmonbearing river in Europe. 100 years ago, there were millions of salmons (Salmo salar) in the Rhine and its tributaries, all the way to the Swiss Alps. The salmon hatched in fresh-water, then travelled to the ocean, lived in Greenland’s waters for a while, only to return to their birthplace in the mountain rivers several years later in order to reproduce. Only since 1991 has this habit been revived, and the salmon population in the Rhine has been regained after tumultuous centuries of cultural and industrial transformation which strongly affected the river. And so, our Tank is meant as a friendly, protective, nurturing space, hosting experimental exhibitions as the results of student workshops, and specific projects between guests, teachers and students. During the student years, we invite you to participate in many different projects and also to invent your own ones. To exhibit is the best way to understand how art works change and are trans-formed by the space, the relation with the context and the interpretation of critics, curators and the audience. Campus of the Arts in a city of Art: Dreispitz is a place where not only the Art Institute and the other 10 institutes of the FHNW Academy of Art and Design are located, it’s a place that offers a great vicinity with institutions that have lot to offer to an artist: HeK (House of Electronic Arts Basel), is right next door to us; they produce exhibitions, talks, concerts and workshops related to technolo-gy,
DO WE DREAM UNDER THE SAME SKY. Art Basel in Basel 2015 © Art Basel.
DO WE DREAM UNDER THE SAME SKY, Kochinstallation von Rirkrit Tiravanija zusammen mit Studierenden auf dem Messeplatz während Art Basel 2015. Foto: Philipp Gasser. new media and art. We work together with them regularly, and we even organize some activi-ties there. Upstairs to the HeK, Atelier Mondial, an international residency program, brings a large number of international artists to Basel every year. This allows you to get in touch with such an ex-perience first hand, get to know their different activities and their exhibition and common space. On the same street as HeK, directly in front of our building, is Radio X, an independent radio that pays special attention to the arts and often opens the doors and facilities to students to do projects, as does Oslo10. Oslo10 is another one of the multiple off art spaces that have been multiplying in the city recently. Artists and curators can apply to program there every two years. It is no secret that Basel is a city with a particular interest in contemporary art, but you may not yet have realized how important this city is in the large international context. Schaulager, a major space dedicated to the Laurenz Collection and to the production of large scale solo presentations of mid-career artists is just few minutes’ walk from your studios. The Kunsthalle Basel organizes regular exhibitions of younger but already established positions that allow you to get familiar with debates and works in a very broad context. We work closely with them and their curators regularly come by the institute to introduce to us their program. The Museum of Contemporary Art and the Art Institute organize a series of talks on curating together. Mandatory to our Master students, the-se
talks are well communicated and, of course, open to all students of the institute. Beyeler Foun-dation is another venue where very well researched painting exhibitions are on view frequently. All these institutions welcome our students warmly and they can enter for free. These places are a source of art knowledge, and opportunities to get in touch with writing and public activities that may be of interest to you. Basel has been seeing a large number of off spaces emerge and successively reinvent themselves in the last years: Ausstellungsraum Klingental, Salts, Dock, Deuxpieces, Villa Renata, Flatter-schafft and many of others contribute to a dynamic range of possibilities for students to show and to self-initiate projects and exhibitions. All in all, Basel is a privileged place to study. The Art Insti-tute and the city are oriented towards knowing and encouraging local developments, while at the same time we are all constantly referring to international developments. This doesn’t contradict what is happening in the city but expands the outdated dichotomy between the small here and the large world. Basel is the big here – on a scale that allows you to take your time finding out how things connect when they are not near, how communities exchange even if they appear to be dif-ferent. Please find out more about the Art Institute through our webpage www.institut-kunst.ch and e-mail or call us with your questions.
Vernissage der Ausstellung Diplom Master in der Kunsthalle Basel. Im Hintergrund die Arbeit Schiff, 2014 von Iris Ganz. Foto: Christian Knörr.
FAC H H O C H S C H U L E NOR DW E ST SCH W EI Z FHNW HOCHSCHULE F Ü R GE S TA LT U NG UND KUNST INSTITUT KUNST F R E I L AGE R-PL AT Z 1 CH- 4023 BASEL
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