Session Convenors:
Andrew Warstat, School of Fine Art History of Art and Cultural Studies, University of Leeds, andrew.warstat@gmail.com
Michael Belshaw, School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies, University of Leeds, m.j.belshaw@leeds.ac.uk

Speakers:
Ian Heywood (Lancaster Institute for Contemporary Art, Lancaster University) ‘Somewhere Else’ and What Goes On There: The teaching studio in the light of Danto and Pippin on post-historical art
Sally Mitchell (Queen Mary, University of London) Speculations on Language in the Arts
Nancy Roth (University College Falmouth) Studio Acoustics
Gary Peters (University of the West of England) Ignorant Artists / Ignorant Teachers
Andrew Warstat (University of Leeds) Teaching the Unteachable and Learning the Unlearnable
Rebecca Fortnum (Lancaster Institute for Contemporary Art, Lancaster University/ CCW, University of the Arts) On Not Knowing What You Are Doing; The importance of studio practice
Ian Horton (London College of Communication) From Apprenticeship to Professional Qualification: The reform of architectural education in Britain in the early 20th century
Michael Belshaw (University of Leeds) Fictions of the Studio

Session Abstract:
The teaching studio is normally seen as a subject for pedagogy. However, in the light of writing on the university and institutions (e.g. Readings, Weber), we might consider the relationship between students, teachers, the university and art as already within the discourse of art, and hence raise theoretical, historical and practical questions.
For example, during a 'crit' the student is pressed to explain his or her work in progress. This separation of commentary and work, formalised in the distinction between research and practice, is predicated on, and inculcates, an author discourse in which an 'inner' thought accompanies an 'outer' object. If such a view is routinely critiqued in theory, how can we explain its apparent continuation in the teaching studio?
Similarly, as a site of pedagogy, the teaching studio is characterised by its rules. Even in a post-conceptual milieu, rules seem, for many, to go against the grain of art practice inasmuch as they imply rote learning over 'creativity'. What would it be like for such rules and conventions to become the subject of student work?
Moreover, as well as being the site of production, the teaching studio is also the site of reception and display. This allows the student-artist to reference the institution and hence to produce what an artist cannot – a work that both thematises and is indexed to its institutional location. This situation – a reprise, perhaps, of the studio genre – has many of the characteristics of what Paul de Man defines as allegory, namely that the allegorical object submits to two simultaneous and mutually contradictory interpretative claims – neither of which dominates, and neither of which can be avoided. How, then, does the discourse of the teaching studio condition the making of the artist? And what are the implications of this for British institutions and British art?