Art Academy and the Creative Community in a Globalised Place

Joseph Kosuth (1993: 253) claims that tertiary art school is involved in constructing reality through the way art is taught, ‘and in this sense an art school is a political institution as much as a cultural one.’ This paper traces the conditions of art and the academy in relation to membership in community and what this might mean in terms of the political conditions of globalisation. By working through a genealogy of the relationship of art school and the community, it works towards an understanding of art as a cultural enrichment proposition and the academy as an innovative site for the strengthening and sustainability of cultural knowledge. This discussion proposes that for the art academy to survive with potency it is imperative that art educators turn their attention to political constructions of the academy and community within the globalised knowledge economy.