For Immediate Release
Media Contact: LA><ART
Anna Dinces, Creative Time Samara Kaplan
annad@creativetime.org samara@laxart.org
212.206.6674 x 205 310.559.0166
www.creativetime.org www.laxart.org
THE BRUCE HIGH QUALITY FOUNDATION AND CREATIVE TIME PRESENT TEACH 4 AMERIKA, A RALLY FOR A NATIONAL RECONSIDERATION OF ART SCHOOL
HOSTED IN LOS ANGELES BY LA><ART
CONVERSATION SUNDAY APRIL 24, 2011 AT LA><ART
On April 24th 2011, LA><ART is pleased to announce that it will host Teach for Amerika, a new project by The Bruce High Quality Foundation (BHQF), presented by Creative Time, the New York-based nonprofit public art presenter. Teach 4 Amerika is a five-week, 11-city, coast-to-coast road trip that crosses state lines and institutional boundaries to inspire and enable local art students to define the future of their own educational experience. Traveling the byways of America in a limousine painted as a school bus, BHQF will visit university art departments, art schools, art institutions, and alternative spaces across the nation, bringing together concerned educators, artists, arts administrators, and—most importantly—students to brainstorm on the future of art schools. What are they for? How should they be organized? If not for careers, what is the essence of art itself? These fundamental questions have long haunted artists, and the BHQF are interested in putting the questions back in the hands of students across America through a combination of dynamic public rallies and intimate conversations.
The project calls for a national rethinking of the current art education system, and will provide an opportunity for BHQF to present on the issues facing artists seeking an education, as well as catalyze discussions with students. With the multitude of institutionalized fine arts degree tracks throughout the country—which increase in number, enrollment, and cost each year—BHQF have been actively calling for students’ self-organization in New York City with their “unaccredited,” alternative, and completely free school, The Bruce High Quality Foundation University (BHQFU). The Teach 4 Amerika tour is a rallying effort to begin this conversation on a national scale and to encourage a new generation of students, artists, and educators to imagine what is possible for art education in America.
“Teach 4 Amerika aims to empower artists to create the education they need and not beholden them to a system that professionalizes them out of their own specificity,” said the Bruce High Quality Foundation.
Teach 4 Amerika will combine the spectacle and energy of a political rally with the substantive dialog of a conversation series, featuring a multimedia presentation by the group, balloons, t-shirts, and music from local pep bands. In addition, at most of the stops, BHQF will also organize an intimate conversation between students and a group of arts professionals to begin transforming the ideas and optimism of the rallies into real change. The conversations, hosted by local alternative art spaces, will attempt to take the pulse of the local educational situation and imagine what it could become, culminating in a series of concrete “first steps” in a plan to realize these visions.
“The Teach 4 Amerika tour will highlight the contradictions and crisis operating at the center of art education in the United States today,” said Nato Thompson, Chief Curator, Creative Time. “With student protests emerging in different parts of the country and overseas, we find that the question of not only tuition, but the point of education itself—if not purely to feed workers into the market, what is its larger social function—is gaining widespread attention. The critique of the education system has always been at the forefront of momentous historical change (in particular the momentous period of 1968 comes to mind) and after a year and a half of running their own self-organized art school, the Bruce High Quality Foundation want to catalyze a national discussion for and by art students, making clear that the structure of art education is a construct and the paradigm can be altered.”
Teach 4 Amerika is presented in partnership with 1419, Carnegie Mellon, the College for Creative Studies, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, Detroit SOUP, The Experimental College of the Twin Cities (EXCO), Feldman Gallery at PNCA, High Mayhem Emerging Arts, Illiterate Magazine, Little Wing, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, LA><ART, Meow Wolf, Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland State University Art and Social Practice MFA, Red Cell, Roots & Culture, San Francisco Art Institute, Santa Fe University of Art and Design, SITE Santa Fe, The Soap Factory, Southern Exposure, threewalls, Tyler School of Art, University of Illinois at Chicago, University of Minnesota, Vox Populi, The Waffle Shop, and The Walker Art Center.
Tour Dates & Locations
New York, NY
• March 29: rally at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art
Philadelphia, PA
• March 31: rally at Temple Gallery, Tyler School of Art
• April 1: conversation at Vox Populi
Pittsburgh, PA
• April 2: rally at the Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon
• April 3: conversation at The Waffle Shop
Chicago, IL
• April 6: conversation at Roots & Culture, in collaboration with threewalls
• April 7: rally at University of Illinois at Chicago
Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN
• April 9: rally at the University of Minnesota in partnership with The Walker Arts Center
• April 10: conversation at The Soap Factory, in collaboration with 1419 and The Experimental College of the Twin Cities (EXCO)
Detroit, MI
• April 12: rally presented by the College for Creative Studies’ Woodward Lecture Series, co-sponsored by the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit
• April 13: conversation at Detroit SOUP
Denver, CO
• April 16 [daytime] : rally at the Museum for Contemporary Art Denver
• April 16 [evening] : conversation at Illiterate Magazine
Santa Fe, NM
• April 20: rally at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design
• April 21: conversation at SITE Santa Fe, in collaboration with High Mayhem Emerging Arts, Little Wing, Meow Wolf, and Red Cell
Los Angeles, CA
• April 24: conversation at LAXART
• April 25: rally at Los Angeles County Museum of Art
San Francisco, CA
• April 27: rally presented by the San Francisco Art Institute Visiting Artists and Scholars Lecture Series
• April 28: conversation at Southern Exposure
Portland, OR
• May 1: rally at Portland State University
• May 2: conversation at the Feldman Gallery at Pacific Northwest College of Art
ABOUT THE BRUCE HIGH QUALITY FOUNDATION
The Bruce High Quality Foundation, the official arbiter of the estate of Bruce High Quality, is dedicated to the preservation of the legacy of the late social sculptor, Bruce High Quality. In the spirit of the life and work of Bruce High Quality, we aspire to invest the experience of public space with wonder, to resurrect art history from the bowels of despair, and to impregnate the institutions of art with the joy of man’s desiring.
www.thebrucehighqualityfoundation.com
ABOUT CREATIVE TIME
Since 1974, Creative Time has presented the most innovative art in the public realm. The New York-based nonprofit has worked with over 2,000 artists to produce more than 335 groundbreaking public art projects that have ignited the public's imagination, explored ideas that shape society, and engaged millions of people around the globe.
Creative Time seeks to convert the power of artists’ ideas into works that inspire social change and stimulate public dialogue on timely issues, while initiating a dynamic conversation among artists, sites, and audiences. A vanguard presenter of public art in New York, Creative Time recently began presenting national and global projects and initiatives, making it the only public arts organization with programs that have reached from New York to New Orleans, Haiti to Hanoi, and Dubai to Denver. These projects further Creative Time’s belief in the importance of artists in society and the power of art to raise consciousness, expose injustices, and imagine a better world.
For more information on Creative Time and its projects, visit www.creativetime.org.
SUPPORT
Lead project support for Teach 4 Amerika is provided by John Bader and Peggy Jacobs Bader.
Creative Time is funded through the generous support of corporations, foundations, government agencies, and individuals. Major programming support for 2010–11 has been provided by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Ford Foundation, and the Lambent Foundation, a project of The Tides Center. We also gratefully acknowledge public funding from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council; and the New York State Council on the Arts, celebrating 50 years of building strong, creative communities in New York State’s 62 counties. The official hotel sponsor of Creative Time is The Standard, and the official and preferred flower designer of Creative Time is Fleurs Bella. The official restaurant sponsor of Creative Time is Park Avenue.
ABOUT LA><ART
Celebrating its 5th Anniversary in 2010, LA><ART is the leading independent nonprofit contemporary art space in Los Angeles, committed to the production of experimental exhibitions and public art initiatives. Responding to Los Angeles' cultural climate, LA><ART produces and presents new work for all audiences and offers the public access to the next generation of artists and curators. LA><ART supports challenging work, reflecting the diversity of the city and stimulates conversations on contemporary art in Los Angeles, fostering dynamic relationships between art, artists and their audiences. LA><ART has produced and commissioned over 100 projects in five years.
