It's hard to say. The fanfare and celebrity attached to schools seems to be a phenomenon particular to the US and UK. Nonetheless there are a few European schools that seemed more popular than others in my CV scanning.
The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (Denmark)
The Gerrit Rietveld Academie (Holland)
The Hochschule Fur Bildende Kunst Hamburg (Germany)
The Hochschule Fur Bildende Kunst Staedelschule (Germany)
So I began compiling that statistical data that I mentioned earlier and there are so many ways to look at things. What I decided to do for now is simply compile a list of early and mid career contemporary artists (with a few older heads thrown in) who have garnered some degree of popularity. I will preface this list by saying that I myself am not yet in art school nor am I some kind of art guru and as such can not make any claim of this list being exhaustive or even that well informed. My findings for undergrad schools are far from conclusive and should not serve as a definitive guide to choosing undergrad schools anyway. As is true of many fields, potential career success is more easily correlated with graduate programs than undergrad programs. The list is completely up for discussion and additions/subtractions. All it can possibly demonstrate is which schools are more popular than others. I’m aware that this list contradicts my earlier proclamations though, in my defence, I will say that the previous list was based on the general constitution of high profile galleries like peres projects, blum and poe, gladstone gallery, deitch etc. I might provide some evidence for this at another moment of industriousness.
RISD
Huma Bhabba
Whitney Bedford
Joe Bradley
Roni Horn
Dan Colen
Ryan Trecartin
Cooper
Verne Dawson
Wangechi Mutu
Francesca diMattio
Matthew Monnahan
Zak Smith
SFAI
Aaron Young
Catherine Opie
Paul McCarthy
Kehinde Wiley
SMFA:
Kristin Baker
Jedediah Caesar
Philip Lorca diCorcia
SVA
Elizabeth Peyton
Collier Schorr
Barnaby Furnas
David LaChapelle
Andrea Fraser
MICA
Whitney Bedford
Carter
Jeff Coons
SAIC
Josh Brand
Sterling Ruby
Fischerspooner
Bard
Walead Beshty
RH Quaytman
Wesleyan
Rachel Harrison
Glenn Ligon
Calarts
Mark Bradford
Eric Fischl
Carnegie Mellon
John Currin
Ryan McGuinness
Brown
Gedi Sibony
Elizabeth Neel
Art Center
Doug Aitken
CCA
Jason Rhoades
Jules deBalincourt
Pratt
Mickalene Thomas
My conclusion: Go wherever is best for you...
unless it's pratt. don't go to pratt.
You kind of got me going. I looked up a few more contemporary artists and what I found is that if you really look, there are many paths to an art career. Some, like Rirkrit Tiravanija and Chris Johanson don't even have a formal degree. Terence Koh went to Emily Carr in Vancouver, Nari Ward to CUNY Hunter. For the ones who have followed a more traditional educational path you will often see that they pursued an MFA.
Here's a few more for fun just to show the wide variety of backgrounds:
San Diego State U. - Andrea Zittell
Temple U. - Karen Kilimnik
Cal Arts - Anne Collier
University of British Columbia, Vancouver - Jessica Stockholder
CCA - Chris Duncan
Scripps - Pae White
Cal State Fullerton - Fred Tomaselli
Oberlin - Ellen Gallagher
Don't know why my list has so many women. It's just who came to mind when I started looking.
For all of you hopeful artists out there don't forget about the Whitney Studio Program which you can do after you get your degree/s: Whitney Museum of American Art: Independent Study Program
(some have even attended with out a degree)
So, now i"m even more dizzy. Thank you Kaelyn, for this thread. What do tyou know about Temple/Tyler and WUSTL? You can respond on my thread, "Where else should we look?"
Can you say a bit more about the art schools in London, UK, and why they might be better than the US? We have connections in London, hence my question.
Also want to report that dear daughter so far likes Tyler, WUSTL, CMU, and MICA best. Eight visits down, three to four to go. Next up: Yale, Cooper, RISD... any LAC's to recommend? Anyone?
I think most people living in art land would probably tell you that the best places to study fine art in the uk would be
The Slade Scool of Art, UCL
Chelsea College of Art, UAL
Central St Martin's, UAL
Goldsmiths, UoL
(all in london)
Glasgow School of Art
(is in glasgow not london)
The Royal Academy
The Royal College of Art
(both in london but only offer post graduate programs)
If you ever decided to look up the CV's of recent turner prize nominees
you'd find that a lot of them went to one of the above. There's no way to
say whether british art schools, in general, are superior or inferior to American
art schools. They are generally a little different though.
Most british undergrad courses in fine art last about 3 years but students are usually required to do a separate and independent foundation degree beforehand which takes about one year. In total it end up being the same four years. They tend not to push the broad liberal education that american art schools claim to, i.e. the majority of your taught courses will be in art history/theory. Also the structure of the programs are generally looser, no credit distribution requirements etc and they encourage students to work independently much earlier on than their us counterparts. Graduate programs are usually one or two years with the exception of the royal academy which has a 3 year program.
I cant say more than that in general
The slade is extremely selective. They take about 4% of applicants a year and they have a larger academic component in their curricula than most british art schools. They offer two programs in fine art: a bfa in fine which is more practice oriented and last three years and the BA in fine art and art history/theory which is four years and is fairly similar to the BFA program but has a larger academic component slapped on to it. The slade surprisingly is less hardline conceptual than some of the other london art schools and is one of the few places in london still considered a "painting school".
I'm not really sure if there is a big difference between Chelsea and St Martins. They are both part of University of The Arts London (UAL). Chelsea's fine art program is more highly regarded the CSM's, especially at the graduate level but i don't know if there is any huge difference between their teaching styles academic environments etc. CSM however, is largely known for being a design school and it somehow happened that they got a good fine art department whereas chelsea is a fine art school that happens to have other departments.
Goldsmiths is notoriously hardline on it's conceptual approach to teaching/art making even at the undergrad level. They produced a slew of famous british artists in the early nineties including damien hirst, sarah lucas, gary hume etc. I think they also have a larger academic component to their program than say chelsea or csm but i wouldn't quote me on it.
I dont know much about Glasgow School of Art other than it's supposed to be quite nice. They also have separate programs based around various media i.e you do your degree in painting, sculpture, photography etc which probably says a lot when compared to schools like csm, chelsea, goldsmiths etc just offer a program in fine art.
The RA and the RCA only offer postgrad programs. The RA is free if you get in and therefore impossibly selective and the RCA is the only grad program in London i think that organizes their courses with respect to media. The RCA is also definitely not as theoretically oriented as other grad programs like those at chelsea or goldsmiths.
80 years ago or so, that kid would have been a genius....
Anyone interested in getting a "feel" for British art would do well to look at the turner prize nominees and recipients. It might be especially illuminating if you compare their work to that presented in the various whitney biennials. Though, as is usual with every art capital, more conceptually oriented work rules the roost. For anyone currently in London, I would strongly recommend Wolfgang Tillmans at the serpentine as well as Francis Alÿs at the tate modern. Joana Vasconcellos at Haunch of Venison was also a fairly fun show to see if you're around though it's not what you might consider heavy.
Replies to: Some notes on the "best" schools for fine art
The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (Denmark)
The Gerrit Rietveld Academie (Holland)
The Hochschule Fur Bildende Kunst Hamburg (Germany)
The Hochschule Fur Bildende Kunst Staedelschule (Germany)
The Kunstacademie Dusseldorf (Germany)
RISD
Huma Bhabba
Whitney Bedford
Joe Bradley
Roni Horn
Dan Colen
Ryan Trecartin
Cooper
Verne Dawson
Wangechi Mutu
Francesca diMattio
Matthew Monnahan
Zak Smith
SFAI
Aaron Young
Catherine Opie
Paul McCarthy
Kehinde Wiley
SMFA:
Kristin Baker
Jedediah Caesar
Philip Lorca diCorcia
SVA
Elizabeth Peyton
Collier Schorr
Barnaby Furnas
David LaChapelle
Andrea Fraser
MICA
Whitney Bedford
Carter
Jeff Coons
SAIC
Josh Brand
Sterling Ruby
Fischerspooner
Bard
Walead Beshty
RH Quaytman
Wesleyan
Rachel Harrison
Glenn Ligon
Calarts
Mark Bradford
Eric Fischl
Carnegie Mellon
John Currin
Ryan McGuinness
Brown
Gedi Sibony
Elizabeth Neel
Art Center
Doug Aitken
CCA
Jason Rhoades
Jules deBalincourt
Pratt
Mickalene Thomas
My conclusion: Go wherever is best for you...
unless it's pratt. don't go to pratt.
Coming soon: the grad list
Purchase - John Kessler
Pratt - Terry Winters
Cooper Union - Philip Taaffe
This could be fun.....keep em coming
You kind of got me going. I looked up a few more contemporary artists and what I found is that if you really look, there are many paths to an art career. Some, like Rirkrit Tiravanija and Chris Johanson don't even have a formal degree. Terence Koh went to Emily Carr in Vancouver, Nari Ward to CUNY Hunter. For the ones who have followed a more traditional educational path you will often see that they pursued an MFA.
Here's a few more for fun just to show the wide variety of backgrounds:
San Diego State U. - Andrea Zittell
Temple U. - Karen Kilimnik
Cal Arts - Anne Collier
University of British Columbia, Vancouver - Jessica Stockholder
CCA - Chris Duncan
Scripps - Pae White
Cal State Fullerton - Fred Tomaselli
Oberlin - Ellen Gallagher
Don't know why my list has so many women. It's just who came to mind when I started looking.
For all of you hopeful artists out there don't forget about the Whitney Studio Program which you can do after you get your degree/s:
Whitney Museum of American Art: Independent Study Program
(some have even attended with out a degree)
James Welling - CalArts
Sharon Lockhart - SFAI
Ohio University:
Jenny Holzer
Can you say a bit more about the art schools in London, UK, and why they might be better than the US? We have connections in London, hence my question.
Also want to report that dear daughter so far likes Tyler, WUSTL, CMU, and MICA best. Eight visits down, three to four to go. Next up: Yale, Cooper, RISD... any LAC's to recommend? Anyone?
The Slade Scool of Art, UCL
Chelsea College of Art, UAL
Central St Martin's, UAL
Goldsmiths, UoL
(all in london)
Glasgow School of Art
(is in glasgow not london)
The Royal Academy
The Royal College of Art
(both in london but only offer post graduate programs)
If you ever decided to look up the CV's of recent turner prize nominees
you'd find that a lot of them went to one of the above. There's no way to
say whether british art schools, in general, are superior or inferior to American
art schools. They are generally a little different though.
Most british undergrad courses in fine art last about 3 years but students are usually required to do a separate and independent foundation degree beforehand which takes about one year. In total it end up being the same four years. They tend not to push the broad liberal education that american art schools claim to, i.e. the majority of your taught courses will be in art history/theory. Also the structure of the programs are generally looser, no credit distribution requirements etc and they encourage students to work independently much earlier on than their us counterparts. Graduate programs are usually one or two years with the exception of the royal academy which has a 3 year program.
I cant say more than that in general
The slade is extremely selective. They take about 4% of applicants a year and they have a larger academic component in their curricula than most british art schools. They offer two programs in fine art: a bfa in fine which is more practice oriented and last three years and the BA in fine art and art history/theory which is four years and is fairly similar to the BFA program but has a larger academic component slapped on to it. The slade surprisingly is less hardline conceptual than some of the other london art schools and is one of the few places in london still considered a "painting school".
I'm not really sure if there is a big difference between Chelsea and St Martins. They are both part of University of The Arts London (UAL). Chelsea's fine art program is more highly regarded the CSM's, especially at the graduate level but i don't know if there is any huge difference between their teaching styles academic environments etc. CSM however, is largely known for being a design school and it somehow happened that they got a good fine art department whereas chelsea is a fine art school that happens to have other departments.
Goldsmiths is notoriously hardline on it's conceptual approach to teaching/art making even at the undergrad level. They produced a slew of famous british artists in the early nineties including damien hirst, sarah lucas, gary hume etc. I think they also have a larger academic component to their program than say chelsea or csm but i wouldn't quote me on it.
I dont know much about Glasgow School of Art other than it's supposed to be quite nice. They also have separate programs based around various media i.e you do your degree in painting, sculpture, photography etc which probably says a lot when compared to schools like csm, chelsea, goldsmiths etc just offer a program in fine art.
The RA and the RCA only offer postgrad programs. The RA is free if you get in and therefore impossibly selective and the RCA is the only grad program in London i think that organizes their courses with respect to media. The RCA is also definitely not as theoretically oriented as other grad programs like those at chelsea or goldsmiths.
that's all i know for now
Possibly Wesleyan and Brown as well.
http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=39932
because somehow I think it will become this, if it were here in US
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Kid_Could_Paint_That
or this, if the kid was born in Eastern Europe and sounds euro-y
http://www.northamericanartworks.com/pages/alex.htm
wow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GE_eoOPWwqc
Anyone interested in getting a "feel" for British art would do well to look at the turner prize nominees and recipients. It might be especially illuminating if you compare their work to that presented in the various whitney biennials. Though, as is usual with every art capital, more conceptually oriented work rules the roost. For anyone currently in London, I would strongly recommend Wolfgang Tillmans at the serpentine as well as Francis Alÿs at the tate modern. Joana Vasconcellos at Haunch of Venison was also a fairly fun show to see if you're around though it's not what you might consider heavy.