david harding: articles

A series of important exhibitions at the major public galleries in London reflected a general climate of change - e.g. Art for Whom? at the Serpentine Gallery, Apr-May 1978, selected by Richard Cork; Issue, Social Strategies by Women Artists, Nov-Dec 1980, selected by Lucy Lippard; Lives, at the Hayward Gallery, selected by Derek Boshier. A social view of art was also promoted at the time in certain key journals (see for example, Studio International, Art & Social Purpose, special issue, March/ April 1976)
Our ideas were not in themselves new. What we did was to bring several disparate ideas and practices together into an educational project - a unique endeavour at the time, given what those ideas and practices were.
The Elmhirsts' interest in making arts practice accessible to the ordinary person was taken up organisationally at Dartington, first in an 'Art Department', created in 1934, which had a professional as well as an educational role, and later in the form of an Adult Education Centre offering art classes to the general public. (See Michael Young's excellent book, The Elmhirsts of Dartington, Routledge,1982). The Adult Education Centre duly developed into a college, run by Peter Cox, which from the mid 60s became a nationally validated institution, offering arts education courses and later specialist degrees. Dartington's unorthodox and anti-institutional attitudes were not always suited to official validating procedures. Becoming a recognised college within the system was not easy and included some reversals of fortune. It was achieved with degree courses in Music and in Theatre by the early and mid 70s respectively. Both had elements in them of community-based practice. In view of Dartington's rural setting, outposts were quickly developed for urban, community-based work in Plymouth and in Rotherhithe. Students studying Music in the Community, validated a bit later, went to Bristol for their practical community projects (largely in schools). The Art Department had for a while run an art education course directed by Ivor Weeks, a 2 year +1 year arrangement with Roll College in Exmouth. It had established a Dip HE (two years at degree level) by 1977.
Paul Oliver, who took over as Head of Art and Design in 1973 was recognised as a brilliant polymath, an artist-designer and prolific author, who had previously taught at the Architectural Association in London and brought with him a vision of the generalist artist-designer such as might have emerged from the Bauhaus. But Paul Oliver's vision also had a lot to do with the national crisis and debate about the role of art and design courses in the immediate aftermath of the famous Hornsey student revolt in 1968. (see, David Warren Piper (ed..), After Hornsey, vols. 1 and 2. Davis Pointer Ltd., 1973). For a detailed account of the history of the College see Peter Cox's unpublished memoir, My Time at Dartington, vol. 1, 1940-73 and vol. 2, 1973-83 - available in the Dartington Archive and the College Library, now also published in summary as a booklet: Cox, P. Origins, Dartington College of Arts, 2002.
Parallel educational developments were also taking place in the late 1970s and early 80s at what were then East London Polytechnic; at Newcastle Polytechnic and Bradford College. At a later stage, similar courses arose at Glasgow (Environmental Art), Wolverhampton, Sunderland, Exeter (student residencies), Birmingham, Cardiff, (also Public Art MAs at: Canterbury, Wimbledon, Dundee ), and St. Martins in London (Critical Fine Art Practice). At around the time we began, a new critical version of art history was emerging, countering the traditional Courtauld approach. For example, Terry Atkinson, Griselda Pollock and others introduced a critical approach to art and art history as part of the Fine Art course at Leeds University. It was sometimes argued that all courses in Fine Art included an element of 'contextual art' in the form of community projects which occurred from time to time, therefore, why claim it as a special thing? Our rejoinder was that for us it was an exclusive and fully worked through focus, not a tag-on to a conventional course of study.
I used to visit many art faculties around Britain as part of a recruitment drive aimed at foundation students. I would look at what was being done in the studios at all levels and would ask myself what this work told me about the world in which it was made. Often it seemed to bear little relation to anything outside the studio. It became a personal ambition that our own work would manifestly have something to say about the world at large.
see, for example, Malcolm Dickson (ed..) Art with People, AN publications, 1995
see Nina Felshin (ed..) But is it Art? The Spirit of Art as Activism, Bay Press, 1995, or Suzanne Lacy's own book, Mapping the Terrain, New Genre Public Art, Bay Press, 1995.
The late seventies and early eighties at Dartington, with a high proportion of female students, became something of a hotbed of feminist action. A largely male staff needed to be urgently boosted with female visitors. This unbalanced situation (faced by most art colleges at the time), was later alleviated as other appointments became possible. Among the new female staff that joined the department was Rose Garrard, an artist with a growing reputation for her feminist work, in the form of installation and occasional public art.
My own particular research and creative work linking art and dance through collaborative projects with Mary Fulkerson and others, took off in this environment and led to collaborative performances and a subsequent book - Chris Crickmay and Miranda Tufnell - Body, Space, Image, Notes on Improvisation and Performance, Dance Books, 1993.
Our original focus on the art student 'placement' or residency was directly inspired by the Artists Placement Group (founded by John Latham and Barbara Stavini), who had pioneered the idea of placing artists (as 'the incidental person') in industry, government departments and other settings. Artists were given an 'open brief' to work creatively in that setting. This was an idea for bringing artists and people into close proximity, which would subsequently be taken up by the Arts Council and RAAs, albeit in a somewhat more conservative form as the Artist's Residency.
Certain colleges suddenly (and we thought rather suspiciously) expressed an interest in community-based work perhaps as a lifeline, since Fine Art in England and Wales was then under immense pressure to justify its relevance or to suffer massive cuts. The expected cuts in courses never transpired, although effective cuts in funding did. Like everyone else in the sector, we struggled to sustain a viable educational experience, despite fewer and fewer staff working with more and more students. In 1978, the staff/ student ratio at Dartington was something like 7/1. Today, ratios of 40/1 are not untypical in Fine Art. The extraordinary thing is that this can still work, though at what cost?
Art and Social Context (with its emphasis upon 'relevance' and live projects), had (and still has) much to offer vocationally in posing the problem early to students as to how, where, and with whom they might work in the future. Students in fact scattered widely in terms of subsequent employment, often after further professional training, but many found work in areas mapped out by the course.
Donald Kuspit, 'The Good enough Artist', in Signs of the Psyche in Modern and Postmodern Art, Cambridge U.P., 1993.


David Harding 2005