Institutional Time: A Critique of Studio Art Education

In this characteristically tenacious book, feminist artist and educator Chicago, best known for her 1979 installation “The Dinner Party” (now permanently installed at the Brooklyn Museum), shares her struggles and successes as an art instructor—at CalArts (where she helped establish the feminist art program), Indiana University, Duke, Western Kentucky, Vanderbilt, and elsewhere—and boldly calls for a systematic restructuring of studio art programs, which she finds “deficient, dishonest, and lacking in standards,” as well as androcentric. Women’s enrollment surpasses men’s, but they are especially disadvantaged and less likely to succeed because the “curriculum as it exists today is biased against women.” Chicago holds up her pedagogical methods as potential models for reforms, particularly her emphasis on students locating personal content (when technique usually takes precedence), which helps women and students outside the cultural mainstream. Chicago’s critiques and proposals are powerful conversation-starters, presented earnestly and without academic jargon. She contends, for example, that studio art educators should have teaching credentials; that students should be exposed to a greater variety of art practices and practitioners, such as muralists and community-based artists; women’s studies should be fully integrated into the core curriculum; and, finally, “artists might consider joining forces to combat an art system that is bad for art and toxic for artists.” Disillusioned students and educators will benefit from this rousing book. 50 color illus. (Mar.)