It is actually pretty easy: Contemporary art resembles contemporary life, as it is as heterogeneous, pluralistic and eclectic as today’s reality itself. We always claim that everything changes so rapidly and the world is becoming a mad house, in which no one really knows what is going on. The same chaos we find in the character of contemporary art. It is a highly dynamic system, which is semi-autonomous but still interrelated with other social systems like politics, economics and education. So, speaking of art, we face a highly differentiated field of expertise, with its own histories, spaces, languages, scientific fields, markets, values and education institutions. Though, especially regarding the education of artists, currently, we heavily discuss its form, quality and efficiency. I am not referring to Pisa or Bologna of course. Common complains come from the students themselves, who increasingly experience the limits and narrowness of the traditional education system. Of course, also academicians feel the difficulty between academic theory and real-life-experience in all disciplines. Though, especially in the field of visual art, where freedom is one of the greatest values, the credit system as well as predicted curriculums of Bachelor and Master programs never made sense to me. 

Anyway, let us have a look at the state of art, wherefrom we then can draw conclusions of how art’s education should be. We have been going through a big change since the beginning of the information era in 1990, as we are now in an era of a powerful visual culture rather than an oral or written one. We are all living with myriad images in this visual culture, where contemporary art and culture became drastically different from modern times. I believe that the strategies, concepts, and approaches of art have changed completely and it is impossible to analyse the art of today with classical art historian methods and ideas of iconography or iconology. Therefore, art’s education needs to change, and I believe that it should adapt its structure to the formal, aesthetic and conceptual character of contemporary art.

So, what is the character of contemporary art? After the loss of the leading schools, movements, and styles’ hegemony in the modern art world, contemporary art started to favour inter-disciplinary, inter-media, interactive, process-oriented, inter-cultural, inter-aesthetical attitudes, in which the separation of low and high culture became obsolete. We live in an age of permanent and speedy technical and intellectual developments that occur at the same time. There, uncountable heterogeneous elements permanently clash, and create so an eclectic and pluralistic platform on which today’s life, culture and art forms hybrid existences. Thus, a spectacular and wild visual culture is given, where absolute reality or truth have vanished. 

​So, how can art education react and respond to this dynamic chaos of creativity, experimental working methods and intellectual liquidity? Traditionally, art education at the university or academy is fixed in compulsive curriculums, in grading systems as well as in bureaucratic norms and procedures. 

Here, especially the American Bachelor system of grades and credits is rather a pure continuation of high school grading than an evaluation system for academic, intellectual or artistic quality. Traditional art education only deals with sculpture, painting, drawing and printing. Though, in today’s art world, apart from these, artists deal with ready-made, concept art, performance, photography, video, installation and digital art. Today’s art students want to play and experiment with different languages and forms, where they while dealing with painting e.g. can try performance art, video art or installations. 

However, most of the time, there is no infrastructure at the academy regarding the education of these fields. Often, the students do not even find a lecturer to talk. Thus, there is a great deficiency in this regard. 

Let me present a few concrete proposals of how I believe the education should change: First of all, I would transfer all Fine Art Faculties into Art Academies again, and then dismiss the Bachelor-Grade-Credit-System. Then, as art students today show interest in various fields at the same time, the education system should allow and support interdisciplinary study. There could even be a Primary and Subsidiary System, where the student could study main and second branches in his education. As contemporary art is connected to contemporary life and research, every student should study a field of social sciences for four years. This can be philosophy, psychology, political science, sociology, pedagogy, or others. Students need to learn fields of theory besides their art practice. The education institute should organize project-semesters. For example, during the summer, art students could work on special projects for three months together with other students from other fields, as well as with their teachers. Of course internship must be obligatory. They need to experience professional life in different fields. Also seminars in art management like exhibition management or presentation techniques would be useful. English is of great importance, so we need to incorporate classes like English Art Theory or English Art History into the curriculum. Finally, when young artists open their first exhibitions, work with curators or collaborate with organizations, they have to deal project management, time management, budgeting and other issues of business administration. Therefore, they should get insight in managerial theories, practices and principles.

I know I am expecting much from the academy as well as from the students. Though, in order to adequately educate open-minded, hard working as well as intelligent and humanistic art students we need an extremely creative education system, which is able to raise fearless cultural activists, who dares to question and criticize the given state in order to look beyond the known and reveal the unknown. In the end, the primary aim should be to make art students knowledgeable in the theory and practice of art by giving them a highly professional forum, in which they can become active, enthusiastic and conscious for taking part in the multidimensional chaos called contemporary art and life.