Juan Beladrich
Group Critique — Facilitating an alternative framework
With my research I am proposing an alternative space for art education at the Willem de Kooning Academy. Using Group Critiques as method, I experimented with creating a space where art education can change its focus from a more traditional object-based approach, to placing the focal point on the students themselves in order to empower them. This way the students will gain the necessary tools to learn and grow in their own way.
What I am proposing is a framework in which the positions of the teacher and the student change into becoming peers as Group Critique participants. The Group Critiques in this case don’t necessarily revolve around art-making specifically, although within the context of an art academy this is constantly implied, but instead I am trying to show the importance of focusing art education on the maker rather than on the work. The aim of this shift in positions is to use Group Critiques as an alternative space to empower all participants into becoming peers.
This establishes a situation of trust where communication, openness, vulnerability and respect are some of the main characteristics. This is a space where failure, as described by J. Halberstam, is encouraged; ignorance, as seen by Jacques Rancière, is the position to adopt in order to keep on learning and growing; and at the same time it works as a support structure, as depicted by Céline Condorelli, for all participants.
External critic: Charl Landvreugd (Artist and researcher)
Thesis: