CLASSROOM 55

Classroom 55 of the AKI (Academy of Art and Industry, Enschede,The Netherlands) is dedicated to exhibitions and discussions of the work of students. Every week this room is available to one student (from the third year on) to work on big projects, to show his/her progress to himself, the teacher and also to the students of the academy. This way the department (also called Innovative Exploration Department) has overcome the chronic lack of spaces within the academy.

Classroom 55 was started in 1974 at the initiative of Maria van Elk. She aspires to diminish the distance between students in their training phase and the artists already functioning in society, and hopes classroom 55 will be an important tool in this. Nine years ago, Maria van Elk was invited by the students as visiting lecturer, and subsequently the direction of the academy asked her to stay on. Under the heading “Innvative Exploration” she has stimulated the independent position of a group of students. This seems a peculiar scientific qualification for an approach which is not bothered by the traditional disciplines such as painting, sculpture or architecture. Therefore, the students can work with a combination of materials and graduate interdisciplinary. “Apart from artists who avowe only to one discipline or material (paint, stone), there are also artists who use a combination of the most diverse materials” van Elk explains. “In this department there are no limits as to the use of materials and techniques, nor is there a limitation to style. From the third year on the students work starting from a personal concept and not from one craft only. Because the craft remains an essential foundation, and the final product has some sort of value, the term conceptual is not always applicable. To acchieve the right expression a certain command of materials is necessary. The medium is chosen in such a way that it applies to the subject. I do not insist on a particular use of material and I don't interfere with the personal affinity of the student for a particular material. However, we do look for materials that are congruent with the subject. Also, economical motives can play an important role, and I will urge students to work with materials that are financially feasable. The artist must grow in existing circumstances in order to increase his independence. In the traditional way students learn to imitate, but that has nothing to do with a personal form.

“At this academy the students get assignments that bring them into contact with different disciplines (ea painting, drawing etc). If it turns out that they lack certain technical skills to realize their idea, this can be remedied easily because they work purposefull. I teach art review during the second term and form in this class the basis for the department. From a certain subject or material I draw lines through history. Often, students think that all art has been made already and that it is impossible to add anything to that. I try to show them how rich art is in possibilities and how great the diversity is and that there will be room for everybodies ideas. Their subjectivity is at least as important as a trend, which is also, after all, based on multiple subjectivity. What is important is that the subjective idea is turned in an object, literally objectified”. “An interdisciplinary approach is, of course, in itself not new and is already commonplace since the monuments for the “Third International” of Tatlin and since Picasso made sculptures from found objects and since Duchamp dropped his wire and Man Ray wrapped a sewing machine. But it is my task to offer a professional education and to give a solid footing to those students who make art outside the established framework. With this I obviously do not suggest that the “Rijksacademie” should be closed: on the contrary, the future of artists, educated in the 19th century tradition looks bright and rosy at the moment. However, that succes is delusive because it concerns only the “discoveries” of a small select group of powerfull trendsetters. These personal overtaking maneuvres in painting are now glorified as an universal truth. Precisely because whimsical movements have determined art policy in museums, in the sense that many experiments in art are lifted at an early stage to a formal platform, it is essential that students know the relativeness of fads and that students are shown their own resposibitity and their own value. I try to shield them, when they leave the academy, from the unpleasant discovery that the present fads have already passed”. “One characteristic of our department is diversity. Therefore, because we function in a structure open to society, there are students who work in the spirit of this time and paint as a performance. Alite Thysen and Edith Knoops also work like this. Jon Kochs and Theo Wittering did a drawing event in the “Gele Rijder”, Arnhem, that lasted 3 days. Theo Wittering has a way of expressing movement which related to comic strips and which causes a tremendous visual din. Then I realize that the visual imagination of this generation is partly developed by the comics culture. The student is in a vulnerable position, doubts whether he/she really is an artist when moving from one technique to another. Work that originated from their own ideas but looks like that of a well known artist is readily suspect. The student is in his most difficult period of his/her life; no studio, no money, little experience but a lot of spirit and inventivity”.

After the second year, which still is more or less a group action, Maria van Elk applies to the personal accompaniment. Her agenda looks like a consultation book, appointments related to the weekly exhibitions are booked over a period of more than 6 months. “I accompany them in their ideas and their vision about art. This varies from one student to the other and therefore I have personal discussions regularly. By means of a conversation I try to clarify what they are up to, and about the question whether the image coincides with their ideas, and I also teach them to be consistent”. About thirty students from the 3rd, 4th and 5th year belong now to the department and the teaching staff has increased prortionally: Sigurdur Gudmundsson, Ad Gerritsen, Tom Lenders and Peter van Beveren were added to the department. The individual attention, which concerns ideally not more than 8 students, is distributed over more than one teacher. Tom Lenders teaches the traditional art history, while Peter van Beveren teaches art review from 1960 on based on his archive. Peter van Beveren has also accompanied Edith Kops in the show of her extremely characteristic work which she was able to show, on her own initiative, in the museum “Waterland” in Purmerend. Tom Lenders organised also final shows in the “Wetering Galerie” Amsterdam for Van Elks final examination candidates Tom Bakkers and Bernadette ten Hove. Maria van Elk has herself also organized final examination shows outside the academy. However, this does not mean that every examination is automatically accompanied by an exhibition. Only if the possibility arrises will teachers support a final exhibition outside the academy. In classroom 55 the students crammed and chastened for the confrontation with the public later on. Van Elk: “What is not good is immediately clear and that which has quality strikes as quality. Sometimes students do not need public, in that case a presentation itself functions as criterion for themselves and for me. This way they learn to argue and articulate what they have tried to clarify in their work. An exhibition like that guaranties an intense concentration on their work while there is nothing in the classroom that distracts. Moreover, a show in classroom 55 presents the opportunity to photograph the work. This way the development of the students becomes visible and a documentation is accumulated for the final exam. This promotes and strengthens their position. Because this department comprises a complicated formation process in which continually the development of one's own line of thinking is stimulated, it is of utmost importance that the department remains small. The teaching staff should be alert on students that use the department as a refuge. This would end in failed painting or failed architecture. I educate students towards a craft and not towards a hobby, therefore quality is the first requirement. The quality of visual art is related to the concentration that is applied making it”.

Maria van Elk
Tineke Reijnders

1983

Click this link to view the original document (text in Dutch)

Farewell speech Maarten Binnendijk
(Deputy Director AKI, Enschede NL, June 13, 2002)