'A Portrait of the Artist as a Researcher, Again'

In 2006, the author was invited to participate in the exhibition 'Academy. Learning from Art', to be shown at the Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen (MuHKA), from September 14, 2006 until November 26, 2006. The Antwerp exhibition was part of a larger project, developed by Angelika Nollert (Siemens Arts Program), Ylmaz Dziewior (Hamburger Kunstverein), Charles Esche and Kerstin Niemann (Vanabbe Museum Eindhoven), Irit Rogoff (Goldsmiths College, University of London), Bart De Baere and Dieter Roelstraete (MuHKA). A first 'Academy' show had already been put up in 2004 by the Hamburger Kunstverein, and simultaneously with the 2006 Academy exhibition at MuHKA, the Vanabbe Museum Eindhoven presented 'Academy. Learning from the Museum'.

Although the curators' focus for both the exhibitions in Antwerp and Eindhoven was on learning, with hist contribution to the Antwerp exhibition Dieter Lesage wanted to draw the attention to that other task of the Academy after Bologna, and that is research. For the catalogue that accompanied the exhibition Lesage wrote a polemical essay entitled 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Researcher', in which a fictitious character criticised in a quite unacademic way the attempts by universities and public authorities to get a grip on the emerging field of artistic research, among others by trying to define the criteria for the evaluation of artistic research output. His contribution to the A.C.A.D.E.M.Y. catalogue would mark the beginning of a more theoretical and collective approach to the problematic of artistic research as a key task of the Academy after Bologna. Indeed, since Bologna, time is ticking for the Academy as a space of learning, research and production, not determined by market imperatives, nor by heteronomic academic standards. Therefore more allies and more arguments for the recognition of the specificity of artistic research were needed. In this article Lesage describes the way in which these allies met within the context of two conferences and an exhibition.