What It Means to Get Your MFA Now : Open Thread

What It Means to Get Your MFA Now : Open Thread

via edward_ winkleman by Edward_ on 10/5/09

Jackie Battenfield (whose new book, The Artist's Guide, you have read me rave about) was kind enough to invite me to speak with her Graduate Professional Practices class at Columbia last week. I really enjoyed the questions the students asked and told Jackie I was impressed with how smart, specific, and un-obsequious the questions were.

I had attributed the high quality of the exchange to Jackie's preparations and the particular students in the class, but in talking with one of the students who later stopped into the gallery, I think there's something else that explains it as well.

The student, N. Dash, was one of the people in the class who had asked smart specific questions (and as it turns out, she's also participating in Fritz Haeg'S Dome Colony...part of a performance that's been taking place at the X-Initiative, and, I believe, you have one more Saturday to check out) and it was kind of her to stop in and thank me for the talk. I noted how impressed I was and that I found it pleasantly surprising that the students had asked such good questions without hesitation...that they were bolder than I had recalled grad students being in previous such exchanges.

She suggested that that's because what it means to be in grad school has dramatically changed since the downturn in the art market. No one in her class now expects to have a sold-out solo exhibition (or even a solo exhibition) in a Chelsea gallery any time soon. They're paying buckets of money as part of a life-long intellectual investment, she told me, rather than as any kind of preparation (let alone guarantee) of a profitable career as an artist. As such, a dealer visiting a class is just another professional sharing his/her experience as part of their education, not potentially the key to their dreams of fame and riches.

This is, of course, what a number of people have voiced as what they hoped a downturn would do, with respect to our graduate programs. Let the students focus on their art and not worry so much about whether they're a failure if they haven't secured a slot in a gallery by the time they graduate. The fact that they had so many specific questions suggests there's still interest in knowing how the gallery system works (which in my opinion is something the programs still need to offer students, in case living off their art is part of their future plans), but the relationship between the dealer and the grad student definitely seems to have shifted.

Consider this an open thread on what it means to get your MFA now.