Issue 118, Winter 2006 - The State of Art History in Ireland, replies and response
Circa 118: Article Reply: Joan Fowler It is not the business of art to save Art History. James Elkins shifts from Art History to Visual Studies to Art Criticism and back (indicating his own predilections en route ), but fundamentally he advocates a discipline(s).This, I would suggest, is antithetical to art practice. It is the business of those involved in and with art to ward off advances from those who propose an academic discipline within art education. Once ensconced, a discipline, with its rigid methodologies, has the capacity to destroy the education art students have enjoyed for the past generation and which, in its prime, was revered across the world. I refer to that open-ended, tutorial-based system with origins in the Bauhaus, revised in Britain in the1960s, and adopted in Ireland in the 1970s. I should be clear that my concern is with education engaged in art practice. I should also say that I take Elkins’s remarks at face value and assume he is honourable in what he puts forward. I say this because there are quasi-managers and opportunists within the Irish third-level system who are only too willing to adopt Elkins’s language, because this is the language that most effortlessly dovetails with government policy. Rationalisations, partnerships, and modularisation: this is talking the talk that facilitates career paths but does nothing to advance the education of art students. There is an increasing disjunction occurring between studio floors and boardrooms. This is redolent of the split between the traditional intimacy of the tutorial system in art education and the larger conglomerates which conduct education largely through lecture auditoriums. Elkins says that art students should receive a “systematic understanding” in art theory. I don’t think so, not only because art students are rightly pre-occupied in trying to cope with art, but because partial understanding is a desirable goal, indeed it is the only goal available. Further, ‘understanding’ is not just partial, it is momentary. Where could ‘systematic’ begin or end? There are no fixtures or borders here. Once “systematic understanding” is uttered, there lurks the proposition that theory frames art. It doesn’t. This isn’t to say that art theory (I use the term vaguely, but I refer to an area that I think is loosely understood) is irrelevant; ‘it’ can be and should be a significant contribution to art practice. In this context at least, art theory should not be an end in itself, and this I think is the crux. This theory’s home is integral to art colleges/ departments and shouldn’t be consumed by academia. Elkins cites practical issues and makes comparison between Art History in Ireland and many other countries. But I wonder if he acknowledges the potential for imperialism in what he says. While he advances links and integrations in higher education, it should be remembered that large institutions acquisition small institutions such as art colleges, and enforce their culture as well as their fiscal policy. Again, Elkins presumes a universal modular structure, despite the fact that in this part of the world educators of art students have argued against it and with good reason. A global university system (which is essentially how modularisation is being advanced in Europe) should not be assumed by default; the homogenisation involved should be sufficient warning. Elkins will point to the insularity and defensiveness of my comments. He is right to highlight the cultural, social, and economic realities that confront us. He indirectly reminds us that Ireland is an overtly philistine society within which its colleges and universities often aspire to little other than mediocrity. The role of art history/ theory/ criticism in art education has been and continues to be a contentious issue, but one that is usually stuffed under the carpet. Elkins, I think, implies that with the help of university relatives, it could be stronger in regard to practice. I would need an awful lot of convincing. As far as practice-based art education is concerned, this is a juncture where the specific aims and requirements of art colleges/ departments need to be articulated in contemporary terms (led by educators, artists, students, and critics, rather than Boards), and we need to communicate these loudly and clearly. Joan Fowler teaches at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin. Reply: Lucy Cotter James Elkins’ article is valuable in its foregrounding of the potential for Art History to play a more pivotal role in art discourse in Ireland. His call for a collaborative nationwide dialogue is much needed, yet belated. If, as Elkins suggests, “a nationwide conversation could easily be arranged,” it is a missed opportunity that he did not convene such a gathering during his three years at UCC. In some senses, the article embodies an attempt at such a conversation, yet it undermines the goals of real dialogue – firstly by submerging the collaborators’ voices in a monologue and secondly by granting them anonymity. The monologue results from the somewhat curious fact that the “collaborators” were invited to alter Elkins’ text rather than co-write it. The anonymity is perhaps more problematic. I am told that the six individuals’ anonymity was due to their wariness of offending ‘the powers-thatbe’ for reasons of job security. Having just returned from Syria, where the police state makes academic free speech impossible, I was somewhat disturbed by this explanation. If this is the real state of Art History in Ireland then surely proposals for change are redundant without confronting this status quo. Institutional demands and professional etiquette are in danger of becoming smokescreens for academic entrenchment if they leave no room for academic risk – the hallmark of any innovative discipline. Foucauldian institutional critique is not something to be added as a mere methodology for students, but a means for confronting power/ knowledge relationships within the institution itself. Elkins’ observation that “the stress on English art and English interests crowds out many other possible subjects” is an important one. However, his suggestion that it “should be allowed to drift away” surely underestimates the extent to which this reliance is deeply culturally inscribed. This is precisely the place to start using the “wider methodologies” Elkins promotes. Unfortunately, his single mention of postcolonial theory in the 2003 article was not elaborated upon, but omitted entirely in the 2006 follow-up. While the article’s stocktaking of recent developments is understandably schematic, lack of reference to recent interdisciplinary engagement with postcolonial discourse is disappointing. I personally ensured that Elkins received a copy of the Third text special issue which partly addressed this area of art-historical discourse in 2005, as well as inviting him to participate in the subsequent NIVAL forum and the forthcoming Association of Art Historians conference session in Belfast, which addresses the relationship between Irish Studies and Art History. A re-conceptualisation of art’s position within Irish culture is a crucial precursor to critically re-situating the discipline. Without this foundation, broadening the remit of the discipline becomes random and eclectic. The suggestions that follow Elkins’ urgent call that “Non-Western Art should be a priority” suffer from this lack of purpose. The increasing cultural diversity of the Irish population calls for a more considered response to why and how the department might broaden its geographical remit. Why not consider cultural interfaces and the effects of human traffic and globalisation on art and culture, rather than prioritising study of ‘pure’ cultures? 50% of the artists in Africa remix , last year’s internationally touring exhibition of contemporary African art, lived in Europe or the U.S. When I hear Elkins propose the establishment of courses on “Asian art,” “African art” and “Oceanic art,” I think of Jimmie Durham’s comment that we often look to the future as though it will be the past. Irish Art History can outmanoeuvre existing departments abroad by skipping these much-critiqued models and work towards the future. If it is courageous enough, the discipline can develop new models organically from its present situation “as the most globalized of EU countries.” I second Elkins’ observation in his earlier article that the relatively small size of the Art History discipline’s offerings harbours opportunities for rapid and radical change. But while much is possible in theory, Elkins’ recent article inadvertently illuminates just why it is so difficult to implement change in practice. Lucy Cotter is a lecturer in Art Theory at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam. Reply: Maeve Connolly My first impulse, when invited to respond to James Elkins’ article, was to decline on the grounds that I know relatively little about the practice of Art History in Ireland because the bulk of my teaching and research has been carried out within Film and Media programmes. In fact, my main insight into the current state of the field is via discussion with Art History graduates studying Curatorship and Criticism on the MA in Visual Arts Practices, run by the Institute of Art, Design and Technology. Based on this experience, I would agree that there is a need to expose Art History students to a greater range of critical methodologies. Interdisciplinary programmes, such as Visual Studies or Visual Culture, present an important opportunity to explore points of intersection between Art History and areas such as Film and Media Studies. But this type of collaboration is dependent upon ongoing institutional investment in resources for teaching. Greater interaction between art practitioners and students of Art History would also be valuable, but ideally it would take the form of shared seminars and projects, rather than an exchange of university ‘theory’ for art school ‘technique’. Elkins emphasises the need for Art History departments to compete within a global economy, and he cites the internationalism of Irish art practice. Many Irish artists, and some critics, are strongly informed by the international context of production but, rather than simply embracing a global economy, they have often sought to establish artist-led networks and resources, taking on the roles of curator or policy-maker in the process. Art historians in Ireland should certainly engage with international scholarship, but they also need to be active across a range of discursive contexts. New scholarly initiatives such as Iris: international journal of art histories (a project led by Elkins) might provide a valuable critical forum within which to explore the global context of research, but Art History will become increasingly isolated if it ignores the apparently ‘ephemeral’ sites and forms of debate that have always animated art criticism and practice. Maeve Connolly is currently (Acting) Head of the Department of Film and Media at the Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Dún Laoghaire. Reply: Mia Lerm Hayes James Elkins will, I hope, remain one of Irish Art History’s most insightful ‘critical friends’, especially through his involvement with many local colleagues in Iris: Journal of International Art Histories . The internationality that this project carries, and that he wishes to see strengthened in Irish Art History, I welcome for further reasons: if one of the particular fortes of Irish culture (during times when there were still centres and peripheries) was to analyze the (colonial) centre, it could be equally valid that in order to assess Irish culture now, we should ask Polish and Chinese people and scrutinize their cultural manifestations in Ireland. In the process, we could find other art-historical traditions more conducive to Irish material than mainstream Englishspeaking methods. May the tendency in traditional Irish Art History to under-theorize also stem from the inadequacy of these models to Irish material? For instance, concerning the many current borrowings from Romanticist traditions, the background and politics of Romanticism seem to be a good starting point for approaching Mary McIntyre, Walker & Walker or Grace Weir’s far-from-internationalist clouds. Such work in ‘postproduction’ mode (like appropriation) requires much of us as critics and theorists. Why should disenchantment prevail when artists are increasingly attracted to working in art-historical modes like writing and curating? That field, alongside internationally prolific local artists, has gone from strength to strength, with especially Project becoming a hub, and it seems that (in Cork and UCD) Art History is not too far behind. Practice-based PhDs can be a catalyst for closer ties between Art History and art; UU has strengths here. In Ulster, academic institutions usually have an advantage in being part of a larger system, but the arthistorical world is shrinking, due to the closure of the only undergraduate course to teach it in Northern Ireland, at Queen’s. Nevertheless, the international AAH conference will soon come to Belfast. If we can, as Elkins suggests, collaborate and learn from artistic and economic developments – which we can’t help doing under the commercialization of research – then some of the outcomes could be to include Art History as one of the desired fields of knowledge for Board Members of arts institutions (in the recent Arts Council guidelines) and forge closer island-wide ties, as well as those between theory and practice. Mia Lerm Hayes is Lecturer in Historical and Theoretical Studies in Visual Art, University of Ulster, Belfast. Reply: Róisín Kennedy I welcome Jim Elkin’s intervention in the (silent) debate on Art History in Ireland. His departure is all the more regrettable when one reads that his six Irish advisers couldn’t divulge their identities to readers of Circa . One wonders what sort of punishment might have been meted out to them for speaking openly of the sorry state of Irish Art History. Few could disagree with the points raised by Jim, but one has to deal with specifics. In defence of the conservative nature of Art History in Irish universities, I would assert that they offer depth rather than width, and that they are outstanding in their dedication to undergraduate teaching. The comparatively tiny Irish Art History departments prioritise their existing resources and specialisms and are aware of carving a niche for themselves in the increasingly competitive arena of postgraduate study, an area which they have previously neglected. The university sector, faced with the choice of exploring and expanding or playing to one’s strength, is taking, and is being forced to take, the latter course. For historical reasons this is focused on Western and particularly Irish art. Irish Art History is not going to remain static, and the majority of those involved in it welcome change in spite of the potential erosion of the subject as a discrete discipline. The drastic changes being brought to bear on university structures will inevitably alter the nature of Art History in Ireland. Modularization (looking at it positively) will allow students to benefit from expertise in other aligned disciplines. Currently postgraduates in UCD can participate in interdisciplinary seminars and networks through new initiatives, including the Humanities Institute. It is likely that future appointments within Art History will reflect the obvious need for courses on theory and contemporary practice, and possibly non-Western art. But given the current constraints this will be a gradual process. (Some of these areas are addressed, in a piecemeal fashion, through part-time and temporary lecturers). As highlighted in the recent controversy over the proposed move of NCAD to Belfield, the idea of merging curricula in Art History and studio art is problematic. It can be done most satisfactorily within the art college unit. (The provision of life drawing classes for Art History students does not require the input of an art college). The application of the inclusive American model requires the kind of funding that top US colleges have at their disposal. In Ireland, there is little genuine thought of the requirements of art students in this scenario – mergers of art colleges and universities in these islands boil down to short-term cost-cutting exercises. Perhaps if there was more open debate among the staff (permanent, temporary and part-time) of art colleges, universities, and indeed, museums and galleries, the gap between the creation of art and its critical and historical discourse might be bridged. Between the extremes of
traditional art historians and radical theorists there is a plethora of Art History and Theory graduates of art colleges and universities who favour a more pluralist approach. I think that they, like me, would like the debate on Art History to continue but in a spirit of transparency and tolerance that (Jim aside) has been distinctly lacking so far. Róisín Kennedy is Yeats Curator at the National Gallery of Ireland and formerly Teaching Fellow, School of Art History and Cultural Policy, UCD, and Lecturer in Art and Design History at NCAD. Reply: Rosemarie Mulcahy It is difficult to know where to begin a response to James Elkins’ envoi to Ireland after his three year stint as head of the History of Art Department at University College Cork. The state of Art History in Ireland ( Circa 116) is another example of his expertise in collaborative exercises — although in this case his collaborators have requested anonymity. Like Elkins, I too have “the unusual advantage of not needing to mind my p’s and q’s, since I am not beholden to anyone in Irish academia.” I write as an independent scholar, with long associations with UCD and Trinity College. His investigation of the state of Art History in Ireland finds it woefully out of date in its approaches to curricula and teaching methods. In fact, we are ranked towards the bottom of his league alongside Central American countries, Ghana, Nigeria, Uzbekistan, Bulgaria, to name but a few. His assessment is delivered with something of the authorative tone of an imperial envoy. He is particularly concerned by the separation between Art History departments in universities and art schools which, he believes, has a detrimental effect on both. As a teacher in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, it is perhaps understandable that Elkins might take this line. However, it is disturbing that he does not recognize the fundamental difference in approach between Art History as an academic discipline (involving rigorous study, analysis, research, publication) and Art History as a source of images and ideas at the service of studio-based art. It would be absurd to expect artists, for whom Art History is just one of many tools in the making of art, to pursue Art History with the same academic rigor as art historians. As for the introduction of practice-based PhDs, surely this can only lead to academicism. Elkins promotes Visual Studies (‘the study of all visual objects, without reference to their status as high art or even as art’) with the zeal of a new religion, and would have us believe that if we do not practice it, Art History (the study of painting, sculpture, architecture) is threatened with extinction. Either accept the study of advertising, television, film and other popular media, or perish. His admonition that “Art History needs to continue feeling threatened by Visual Studies” sounds uncomfortably close to Bushian rhetoric about the need for a permanent state of terror-alert. I happen to believe that it is imperative that all students be introduced to popular media studies, and the earlier the better. In this
way they can acquire the critical skills to analyse and understand the powerful commercial and political forces that are shaping their lives. However, in my opinion, it would be more logical to include Visual Studies in courses on Journalism, Sociology or Commerce rather than History of Art. This brings us to the problem of overloaded curricula and the perennial difficulty of the wide-ranging first year survey course (from Egyptian (art?) to Modernism). Elkins acknowledges the problem, but then goes on to criticize Irish Art History departments for not offering courses in Asian, African, South American and Oceanic art, as well as Visual Studies. Yet he recognizes that to compete and excell one needs to specialize, play to one’s strengths. I agree. He urges change for the sake of change. The small, fledgling Department of Art History at UCC, had only been running two years when he arrived and, he acknowledges, “the First Arts module has been immensely popular … But such courses need to be changed radically and quickly, or else their solidity and popularity will be mistaken for adequacy.” God forbid! One wonders why, during his three-year tenure, no changes were made. Although Ireland’s cultural and geographic proximity to Europe make it logical that our courses should be centred on European art, Elkins believes that European art content should be reduced to one third and the rest made up by world art and Visual Studies. He has particular
difficulty in understanding the emphasis on things English, which he perceives as “an unfortunate left-over from colonial times.” Whether British postcolonialism would be a worse fate than American cultural imperialsm is debatable. His comments echo remarks by some ultra-nationalist politicians and developers, in the bad old days of the 1970s, as justification for the demolition of part of our architectural heritage. Happily, Ireland’s rich heritage of Georgian and Victorian architecture and artefacts is now universally recognized as an integral part of our history and culture. Much better use should be made of the rich resources that are available by the sharing of expertise and facilities. For example, the Chester Beatty Library offers marvellous possibilities for the development of courses in Islamic and Oriental art. The National Gallery, the centre for Irish Art at Trinity College (TRIARC), the Irish Architectural Archive, the Hunt Museum, the Crawford Gallery, all have outstanding collections and staff with a wide range of expertise. A symposium comprised of representatives of the institutions concerned might be a way to begin dialogue. Rosemarie Mulcahy has recently published Philip II of Spain, patron of the arts (Four Courts Press); she is a former Honorary Senior Fellow in the History of Art at University College Dublin and an Honorary Member of the Royal Hibernian Academy. Reply: Sheila Dickinson I have taught previously in the Art History Departments at both UCD and NCAD, allowing me an insider perspective on the teaching ethos in both the Irish university and the art-college settings. In section one of his article, Elkins encourages a stronger bond between Irish universities and art colleges because “experts in such subjects as Foucault, Deleuze, semiotics, and psychoanalysis normally work in universities, not in art colleges.” This might be true in other departments within Irish universities but not in Art History departments, a point with which Elkins concurs in section four, where he states, “there is relatively little evidence of the methods of the last fifty years [in Irish Art History]: Foucauldian institutional critique, Marxism à la Althusser, Lacanian psychoanalysis, Peircean semiotics, deconstruction, literary theory, feminism, and queer theory.” This material is not taught by the permanent faculty at UCD nor is it part of their research. Occasional lecturers like myself are brought in to teach new methodologies in Art History for one semester, but the students, who are enthusiastic and excited by this material, are not consistently graduating having learnt these new methodologies. Faculty within the Art History departments at Irish art colleges are much more familiar with art-historical methodologies of the last fifty years and usually progressive in their research and involvement outside their institution. As a result of consistent teaching of theory and these contemporary methodologies of Art History, I found the students more engaged with theory, partly due to its potential impact on their practice,
regardless of whether or not theory was being taught by studio tutors. Elkins refers only to the teaching of art theory by art teachers, not by Art History teachers within art colleges. On the whole, Art History Departments in both universities and art colleges would benefit from a more coherent and thorough approach to the teaching of new methodologies in Art History; however, there is no indication that a closer alliance between art colleges and universities would aid this. Sheila Dickinson is a PhD Candidate in the History of Art Department at UCD, a former lecturer in Art History at NCAD and UCD, and has recently returned to the US after ten years in Ireland. Reply: Siún Hanrahan James Elkins’ comments regarding the narrowness of provision in most of our art survey courses (to would-be art historians and artists) strike me as wholly appropriate. As do his observations regarding the need to engage with art theory and a wide range of interpretive mechanisms. The proposed remedy to the inadequacy of provision, developing a systematic collaborative curriculum at a national level, is exciting; likely to be much more difficult to bring into effect than Elkins assumes, but a suggestion that has enough merit to make it worth pursuing. The general mismatch between the Irish art scene and the diet of Irish Art History provision has struck me in the past, and a greater exchange between Art History departments and art colleges is highly desirable. My difficulties with Elkins’ account arise at this juncture, however. An exciting (but expected) list of resources that universities might offer artists is proffered, but his reflections on the reciprocal benefits for art historians is very disappointing and offers no guidance in overcoming ‘mutual alienation’. Furthermore, that the preferred, and possibly only, encounter with making art that art historians should have is a life-drawing class is surprisingly conservative. Similarly, there is no reason why an art student should be immediately eligible to register for a History of Art PhD; an Art History student would not automatically be eligible to register for an MFA or a practice-based PhD. The comment regarding our graduates’ ineligibility for art programmes such as the Whitney et al would be problematic if it were true. But it does not bear close scrutiny (unless you assume that exceptions simply prove the rule), nor does it tally well with Elkins’ assessment of the Irish art scene. For the record, Elkins’ list of art colleges offering practice-based PhDs is not comprehensive, as has been drawn to his attention in the past. It can be difficult to offer candid opinions and it is often difficult to hear them but such open commentary is very welcome indeed. Siún Hanrahan is a writer and artist, and Research Coordinator at the School of Art Design and Printing at Dublin Institute of Technology. Response: James Elkins It’s been a half-year since I’ve been back in the States. Virtually all of my 400 television channels originate in the US, including the strangely edited ‘BBC America’, which offers such classics as Benny Hilland a steady diet of Alan Partridge. If I remember exactly when to tune in, I can get Six one, and there’s a scattering of news shows that originate in Taiwan, Japan, Korea, India, and China. The local Polish, Mexican, Indian, Bulgarian, Romanian, and Korean communities in Chicago have their own stations, with mostly home-grown programming. But that’s nothing compared to the international channels Sky offers in Ireland, in dozens of languages – including my favorite channel, OBE, with its Nigerian soap operas, such as the excruciatingly odd Dada boat. This is the weird disparity between Ireland and the US: in Ireland, foreign languages and stations are all over the airwaves, but foreign minorities of any size are a relatively new phenomenon; in the US, it’s more or less the opposite. In Ireland, the art world and the world of academic Art History have different ways of responding to Ireland’s escalating globalism, and that was part of what I wanted to register in the State of Irish Art History essay . I am tremendously grateful for all the help and encouragement I had in writing that essay. It isn’t the best way to collaborate! – and it ended up sounding ‘authoritative’ and even imperalistic as both Rosemarie Mulcahy and Joan Fowler say. For that, I’m genuinely sorry. I’m grateful, too, for the eight responses, almost all of them friends and acquaintances. Conversation and exchange is what matters, and it is good to know that a ham-fisted intervention can be (at least partly) forgiven. I’d like to do some mending in this Response . What matters most, I think, is finding ways develop Irish Art History, Visual Studies, and Visual Theory. Here are some points for further discussion, in no special order. 1. Trading faculty between art schools and universities.
It’s very true, as Sheila Dickinson says, that Art History faculty in art colleges tend to be “more familiar with art historical methodologies of the last fifty years” than faculty in universities. That presents interesting possibilities for collaboration. In Cork, for example, Lucy Dawe Lane teaches both in the Crawford and at UCC. Crossovers from art schools to universities are more common, in my experience, than university faculty who go to teach in art schools. But both are salutary. There’s a world of possibilities beyond drop-in visits to life drawing classes (as Siún Hanrahan rightly points out). Faculty exchanges aren’t always very feasable, given the pressures of full-time teaching and the problems of commuting: but they can be an excellent bridge, demonstrating new possibilities to students on each side. I don’t think any institution in the world has succeeded in producing a seamless integration of studio art classes and Art History. It’s a matter of local arrangements – a cross-listed class here, a common event there, shared offices and classrooms. As Róisín Kennedy observes, it’s “problematic” in all cases. Joan Fowler points out that it doesn’t make sense to say art students should have “systematic understanding” of art theory, and she says she’d need “an awful lot of convincing” that university-style art theory could be apposite in art practice. From my perspective, this is a philosophic issue: it goes to the different histories of Art History and studio art instruction. I agree with Joan that an importation of university-style visual theory can be inappropriate, because what counts as ‘systematic’ theory can end up being unhelpful. Yet there are complex issues here, to do with kinds of discourse. What’s important is to keep experimenting, keep trying to find ways to bring the two together. As Róisín says, the gap could be meliorated “if there was more open debate between the staff (permanent, temporary and part-time) of art colleges, universities, and indeed, museums and galleries.” It’s a fabulous idea. More on it at the end. 2. The practice-based PhD is here to stay. There are several projects underway in the States at the moment. It definitely does “lead to academicism,” as Rosemarie Mulcahy says, but then again that is what people said about the MA and the MFA in the States after World War II. This new ‘terminal’ degree can hardly be stopped, and so my sense is that it should be studied so that it can be implemented in an optimal fashion. Reading groups and periodic conferences would be good for that, as in the ones Mick Wilson, Tim Jones, and others have instigated. 3. What to do with Visual Studies?
I do think Art History departments are sometimes insufficiently threatened by the growth of Visual Studies, because they let it develop outside Art History, until it forms full-fledged centres and departments of its own. That has the unfortunate result of dividing the study of visuality among several different units in the university, and it also saps students from Art History. On the other hand, there are plenty of places where Visual Studies (under whatever name – Image Studies, Media Studies, Visual Culture) is developing organically within existing Art History curricula. I’ve just visited a couple of institutions in the States where that happens: the Rhode Island School of Design hardly notices the difference between Art History and Visual Studies (they call both ‘Liberal Studies’), and Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee, a small Christian institution, does Visual Studies from a Church of Christ perspective. That’s to say there are many possibilities. Rosemarie Mulcahy has an excellent idea, which I have never encountered before: she suggests Visual Studies could find a home in “journalism, sociology, or commerce rather than history of art.” What matters, I think, is to create or maintain links between nascent centres, departments, and other
units, before their bureaucracies solidify. I don’t think there’s a good argument in favor of studying the visual world in many disconnected places in a university – and there is much to be gained by trying to gather everyone who studies visality under a single roof (if not under as
single Department). 4. What to do with that British heritage? It’s a tricky question. Let me put it as pro and con arguments. Pro: In favor of retaining substantial emphasis on English art and its influence, it can be said that English interests and tastes are an indispensable part of Irish history, and therefore of Irish art. The Grand Tour, Neoclassicism, the Georgian inheritance, and other subjects can’t be omitted from curricula without wilfully distorting history. Con: Against that it might be argued that it is possible that Art History may have developed a special interest in just a part of its cultural heritage, and that interest may be perpetuating an undue emphasis. An emphasis on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English art could b eseen as a kind of nostalgia, out of touch with contemporary developments. Or again, from a practical standpoint: P ro : One should “play to one’s strengths,” as our essay put it. This is also true generally, I think, across all of Art History. Any number of large universities that aren’t particularly known for their Art History departments could quickly become internationally prominent if they specialized. In a country of Ireland’s size, that’s even more attractive as an option. It’s what we tried to do at UCC, and what Trinity is doing with TRIARC: a nameable specialization is also attractive to students. Con: And yet, it’s also true that smaller countries can be less attractive to international students if they do not demonstrate that their curricula are connected to wider themes. 5. World art . There are also pro and con arguments for increasing the amount of world art that’s taught in Irish curricula. Con: In favor of retaining the current emphasis on Irish, English, western European, and North American art: it is true that Ireland’s geographic position means that its Art History curricula will have a lot to do with English art. Irish curricula should “prioritise their existing resources,” as Róisín Kennedy says. Pr o : But on the other hand, Ireland’s exponentially increasing globalism means that world art is increasingly pertinent. The argument in State of Irish Art History was that Art History around the world is becoming more global. I didn’t see the plea for including world art as anything particularly American, except in the inevitable sense that global capitalism follows American models. Art-historical curricula are becoming more global in many places, including China, India, and South America. World-art curricula in non-Western countries aren’t “homogeneous” and so far, thank heavens, they haven’t led to “a global university system.” (One of the books we produced in UCC in 2005, Is Art History global? , debates this at length; it will be out in January 2007.) The worldwide trend to diversify the subjects of Art History is the main reason why Irish Art History should continue to develop offerings outside Western Europe and North America. 6. A second reason comes from postcolonial studies.
Lucy Cotter points out that Ireland’s current situation entails new kinds of international encounters, ones that have been articulated in postcolonial theory. As Mia Lerm Hayes says, “we should ask Polish and Chinese people and scrutinize their cultural manifestations in Ireland.” And Maeve Connolly observes that “Art History will become increasingly isolated if it ignores…apparently ‘ephemeral’ sites and forms of debate.” To me, the current multicultural climate in Ireland is a pressing reason to include questions of nationality, ethnicity, community, and hybridity in university and art-college curricula. (I’d love to see a course on OBE and Dada boat .) This is a distinct problem, in my mind, from the previous point, which is to do with adding histories of, say, South American painting, to Irish Art History curricula. The previous point had to do with the
discipline’s broadening scope, and this has to do with postcolonial theory. I’m in favor of both. When we advocated the inclusion of “courses, streams, and specialists in Asian art, African art, Precolumbian and native American art,” the idea wasn’t to go back to some old-fashioned Art History: on the contrary, those specialties are current, cutting-edge interests in Art History. They don’t represent unreconstructed colonial
categories; rather, they blend, by imperceptible degrees, with contemporary studies of postcolonial and noncolonial conditions around the world. I just mention this because it might be useful to distinguish these two different reasons for including world art: one driven by the discipline, which is developing shared interests around the world; and the other driven by Ireland’s current configuration and the interests of the people who are coming to live here. 7. The Arts Council wasn’t mentioned in this round of responses. I stand by what I wrote to Brian Hand in the last issue of Circa , number 117: the Arts Council needs to start generating a paper trail, so people can see where its decisions come from. It needs to be more critical, on the record, and less invisible to working artists and academics. Mia Lerm Hayes has a good idea along those lines: “include Art History as one of the desired fields of knowledge for Board Members of Arts institutions”! 8. Ways to keep talking . Here’s the crux of the matter: to keep talking, to keep conversations going across disciplines and institutions. Just as I was leaving UCC, there was some discussion of a new government initiative to identify more specializations within individual departments in Irish universities. The idea had already created controversy in 2005, with rumors of language departments being shut down in different universities. It’s not that specialization is painless, or without its bad side. It’s that it takes a concerted effort, at a high level, to get talks about specialization underway. The UK and Switzerland are among the countries that have been working at identifying their strengths in various academic institutions. The conversations themselves can be valuable, even if they don’t lead to institutional changes, because they let people compare their interests and skills. I don’t know what happened to that particular initiative at UCC, but I completely agree with Rosemarie Mulcahy’s closing suggestion: “a symposium comprised of representatives” of the Chester Beatty Library, TRIARC, the Irish Architectural Archive, the Hunt Museum, the Crawford Gallery – and, I would say, all the departments in art colleges and universities that are concerned with visual art – “might be a way to begin dialogue.” And to that let me add Róisín Kennedy’s idea: “more open debate between the staff (permanent, temporary and part-time), of art colleges, universities, and indeed, museums and galleries.” How about a meeting – large-scale, open to all, with a series of short talks and open-microphone conversations – on the optimal configurations of Art History and studio art in Ireland? Something that could be published, discussed in classrooms, and re-convened the following year? An open-ended, nationwide conversation on the best ways to teach art? I can’t think of anything more promising. Professor James Elkins teaches at the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism, School of the Art Institute of Chicago; he was head of the Art History Department, University College Cork, from 2003 to 2006.
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