REVISION NUMBER SIX ADDICTIONS BY DAVE HICKEY IT SEEMS REASONABLE to assume that the percentage of human beings with the talent and predisposition to make good art and literature has not varied much since the Middle Ages. The opportunity to make good ert and literature, however, has expanded in every decade since the ‘age of John Keats, In response to this broadening franchise, elite cultures have striven to defend their domain by esca- lating the level of "dificulty* demanded from serious art and Iterature. The larger the field of runners, in other words, the higher the hurdles. Two centuries of ‘expanding opportunities confronted by an escalating standard of difficulty have led to this consequence: today, anybody ‘can make a work of art that nobody can understand. Actually, if you factor in the contemporary fantasy that certain kinds of understanding are culturally exclu sive, you have a situation in which any anybody oan make a work of art that nobody has the right to understand, ‘So we lve in a moment when works of art are defined by their opacity, and we don't care what they mean. Art criticism ‘that sooks to endow difficult works of art wth an element of transparency is regarded with suspicion. Mambers of the art ‘world, ike the adepts of a mystery cul, tread soft, lest eome ccasuel explanation shatter the altars at which they worship. This ‘moment of wilful incuriosity seems an appropriate occasion to reconsider the sites upon which the franchise is extended and the regime of diffoulty is escalatec—to parse the costs anc benefits of graduate education in at in the United States. The \Wwind shear in these schools Isat its most extreme, as educa tors with marginal credentials indoctrinate students of marginal literacy in a discourse that is utterly relevant, 'So, lot me begin my screed against at education with these ‘caveats, Fst, | spent the best 10 years of my ife teaching gradu ate students in art, never had a class without atleast one artist. | had one class with soven, all of whorn now have careers. Students ‘who were not artists derived no beneft from my lasses, so the ‘temptation to “raise consciousness.” inorease ‘sel-awareness” Li Pttman: Untitled #8, 2008, cel aciyic and laogust spray on gessoed carves Sn wood panel 62 by 40 riches, Courtesy Barbera Gladstone Galery, New York ‘and encourage “critical thinking” was alvays there. My resistance to these sociological options ulimately cost me my job, but it was fun while it lasted. Second caveat: the American art world as it ‘exists today is founded on one of the great educational experi- rents in the history of chilization—the G.. Bil, which allowed \torans of the armed services to study art with whomever they ‘wished wherever they wished, at the Sorbome in Paris, at Ruskin College i Oxford, at the American Academy in Rome, in Kansas ity, Chicago or New York. Elsworth Kelly, Richard Diebenkorn, Kenneth Noland, Robert Rauschenberg, Leon Golub, Philip Pearistein, Norian Bluhm, Forvare Bearden, Robert Colescott Lany Rivers, Ai Lesiie, Sam Francis and Robert Indiana were beneficiaries ofthis bil pretty good start on an art worid that ‘wouldn't have nearly enough women for 20 years. “The expiration of the G.I Bill and the wave of American exceptionalism that lowed In the wake of New York School painting destroyed the cosmopolitan dimension of American frt education. Graduate art education retreated to American Universities with adjacent livestock and, very itis adjacent ar, Three kinds of {graduate schools have evolved from this retrenchment. There are "normal" schools that recruit graduate students ‘as teaching assistants to do the facul t's work for them. Students et these schools, one hopes, jaan enough about ‘academia to avoid it thereafter. There are “feeder” schools in the New York ‘and Los Angoles areas that dwell in the tyrannical shadow of the marketplace. Students from these schools occasion- ally suoceed by fortuitous shortsighted- ress. Then there are “seminaries” where students are indoctrinated into last year's intallectual fashion, These schools take students from every walk of life ang rob them oftheir birthright. “Throughout my tenure in the art world, these distinotions have held true—as has the 98 percent level of attrition among graduates with Masters of Fine Arts degrees, Potential graduate students must choose between the wan proto cols of academic cuture, the high-dollar frenzy of the merket and the theological rigor of some pale guru None of these cruel adaptations have much to do with making art and they al exact a price. Even so, untl the late '70s, no one ‘worried much about this. There were not that many graduate stu Gents nor that many graduate schools. The schools did't cost that much or pay that much, Artistic poverty was stl in fashion, ‘90 those who chose the safer path of teaching were seen to ‘deserve their fate. One accepted the damage as part of the cost tf doing business. Lives wre ruined, of course, and hearts were broken, Students were liad to, abused and deceived. Unlicensed psychotherapy stifled bithe spirits, but this seemed an accept: Able price to pay to thin the turkey herd. inthe early "80s, great teachers like John Baldessari at CalArts and Michael Cralg-Martin at Goldsmiths gave graduate ‘education some career erediollty. Soon thereafter, art schools that were mandated to enhance their liberal arts credentials got into the culture-theory-diversity business. Many trans~ formed themselves into boot camps for theoreticel regimes that had thelr own generalissimos. These stars justified anDEPENDING ON THE SCHOOL, THE GIRL OF MY PROFESSORIAL DREAMS WOULD BE LABELED DISRUPTIVE, ARROGANT OR UNTEACHABLE. AND TRUST ME, SHE WOULD BE. exponential! increase in the cost of graduate education. They attracted a ballooning number of graduate art students who hoped that smart made art. (If did, Cambridge, Mass., would bbe Paris in the '20s,) The rate of attrition, however, stayed steady, and there was no Golden Age, no cornucopia of new art, no legions of new artists. A larger percentage of college, basketball players still make the pros, and graduate art stu- dents are reduced to bagmen, They borrow a quarter-milion bucks from the government, give it tothe institution and then ‘work in an Apple store to pay the bil Graduate educators.in cultural practice, sadly, can only strive to do no harm. They cannot create artists, and, when Josiah MoEiheny: Endlessly Repeating Twentith-Century Modernism (deta, 2007, handblown mirored glass and mixed mediums, 8414 by 92% by 82% inches. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Courtesy Donald Young Gallery, Chicago, they try, the window of opportunity they ones flung open is closed. | offer this example: In 1992, | was given a tour of the architectural drawing studio at Comell University—a long stone shed with a long line of drafting tables facing a long line of windows looking out upon the weeds and snow pud- les of bucolic Ithaca. As we walked in, the common boom box was booming Jane's Addiction. Perry Farrell was yelping his way through Mountain Song, Summertime Rolls and other frenzied chestnuts. | raised an eyebrow at my professorial minder. He declined to acknowledge the music, refused, even, to ralse his voice to be heard over it. We walked behind the long row of students hunched over their boards lining out pale, pure modern architecture, no alive, no onion, no twist. | imagined a red fireman's exe imbedded in each student's skull, the axe handles run- ring down their backs, the blades splitting each student brain left from right. Right brain: Jane's Addiction, feckless ‘ecstasy. Left brain: Colin Rowe, impotent modernism. In the fleeting moment after | heard the music and before | saw the drawings, | had experienced an uptick of interest. Architecture infused with Jane's Addiction might be fun, | thought, and it might have been. | mentioned this schism to my academic minder once we were outside. "Oh yes," he murmured, "We like to wipe the siate clean here.” | wondered how many slate-wipings were required to disable the bicarneral mind utterly, but | didn’t ask. The requisite num- ber, | was sure, would be forthcoming. Then, as | always do, | tried to imagine the fate of my ideal student under such a regi ‘men. The girl of my professorial dreams would be the Quentin Tarantino of American art, She would bring with her the same knowledgeable enthusiasm for postwar art that Tarantino brings for postwar cinema. She would want to do art from jump, and | can't imagine @ schoo! in which she would flourish Depending on the school, she would be labeled as disrup- ‘ive, arrogant or unteachable, and, trust me, she wouid be, but so what? | know this because even my second most ideal students have trouble. The kids who bring guitars, keyboards, piles of books, comic books, starburst clocks, Festaware, firecrackers, golf clubs, surfboards and fancy underwear all suffer for their stake in the living culture. ‘Then | try to imagine famous slates wiped clean. | imagine ‘Andy Warhos slate wipad clean of al that advertising crap, Rich ‘ard Serra denied his greasy shipyard, Matthew Bamey denied his jock-dandyism, James Rosenquist denied his billboard skils, Barbara Kruger without Mademoiselle, Laurie Anderson and Mike Kelley without rock and rol, Tom Nozkowskl without Mad magazine, Jim Shaw without horror movies, Lari Pittman without the poof and giter of the decora- ‘tor shop, Allof these situations are Uunimaginable, of course, and never to bbe wished, This has made 20 years, cof watching similar atrocities visited ‘upon graduate students all the sad dor. Some will say that these students just weren't tough enough, and that may be true. Even so, the abilty to resist aggression in the guise of care shouldn't be required as part of an artist's skil set. itis, however. My optimum solution would be to abolish graduate studies in art altogether. Faling this, one might Just avoid it. Try Raymond Pettibon’s {rajectory: grow up ina iterary family ina beach house full of books, get a dagree in economies, teach math, draw posters for your brother's band (Black Flag), hang out and get discov- fered, Or Josiah MoElheny's trajectory: study sculpture and anthropology as an undergraduate, become interested in single- ‘source traditions lke glassblowing, go to Venice to study that tradition, learn to blow glass from the masters and start making art. Or, a8 a last resort, try the solution my classmate Gilbert ‘Shelton fell upon. Gilbert and his co-conspirators went up to the art department at the University of Texas every day and painted ‘Abstract Expressionism. Every night, they carne home and drew Underground comic books, When they had enough pages, they founded Zan Comix and moved to San Francisco. Finaly, they ‘moved to Paris, where they stil draw comics. Al these strategies seom riskier and more circuitous than ‘graduate school, but they don't hurt nearly as much. They don't include cinderblock walls. There are no creepy has- beens with sour admonitions or nincompoops in the food court. Also, in the egg-and-spoon race for artistic recogni- ‘lon, you are a thousand times more likely to get there with your ogg if you avoid graduate school. More critically, if you want to be an artist and you must go to graduate school, ‘you must bring your own egg, your talisman, your jones, your touchstone in the larger cutture, something you love, even if It's just an old Hobie or a street tag or Jane's Addiction. You need something whose loss you will notice when It begins to slip away, something to serve as a hedge agalnst opacity, because It’s not just about you, it's about bringing the fire from wherever you found it to an art world that needs it. 0