Supernaturally timeless or sisters in Modernity? Contemporary art in classical university

Authors focusing on agenda of current cultural development in relation to dynamics of change in the realm of higher education and the modern/contemporary art institutions (museums, biennale) in the late XX - early XXI century. Using arguments of Stefan Collini and Pascal Gielen, authors propose that rethinking of classical foundations in arts and education is required in the context of actual interpretations and changing cultural distance between contemporary art and universities. As a part of the argument there is a practical case analyzed where contemporary arts introduced to classical university in the format of campus-based art space “Main Building Gallery” of Tomsk State University. In the global context of change there are different logics that bring problematizing points on classical foundations of universities. What “classical” means today in the historical gap between idea of storing/translating traditions of the past and actualization of the future in the vector of Modernity? Answering this question is not enough to make reference to the heritage, tradition and roots that universities have in the synthetic universalism of seven liberal arts (trivium and quadrivium) or in sublime enlightenment elitism of Von Humboldt's scientific university. In this paper, on the one side, author argue that it is incorrect to discuss “classical” outside the context of modern / contemporary. And this is art, on another side, that works as a major marker of modern / contemporary, providing the coordinate system for where it reveals itself. And as illustration for this we could bring many cases of growing participation of universities in current artistic life -from campus-based galleries and experimental art-spaces to art-residences and art-festivals. In the late XXth - early XXIst centuries modern/contemporary arts and universities became “sisters in Modernity” in some very important sense. They are not just “mates in the same neighborhood of classical culture” any more. Stefan Collini (using British statistical data) demonstrates that specifically after the WWII there was almost an exponential growth in amount of universities and governmental budgets for them. This point is also verified by UNESCO statistics on international students worldwide: from 1975 till 2010 this number grew up in 5 times to 4.1mln students and it keeps growing our days. In the same period of time, argues Pascal Gielen, while universities grow as something similar to international corporations making money from students, research and business start-ups, serious changes happen with ideological foundations and practices of art museums: dramatically growing in numbers too, they became cultural landmarks and symbols of social and economic change around the world. Understanding this context, authors created new art-spaces in the walls of classical university (“Main Building Gallery” of Tomsk State University). It doesn't mean exclusion of classical tradition (from both university and museum in broader sense), responsible for cultural memory. In current cultural situation it is necessary argue that art institutions do not operate in historical vacuum but put themselves into productive conflict of innovation and conservatism, that always create new energy and inertia of experiment and change.

Keywords

Authors

References