Transformative politics and social justice ambitions tie together Cooper Gallery s new programme, The Ignorant Art School Feature by Adam Benmakhlouf | 12 Mar 2021
The Ignorant Art School is the banner title of the new three-year programme of free-to-attend exhibitions, meetings and events from Dundee s Copper Gallery. It launches with a diverse series of events this month and next – only a selection of which are covered here.
Speaking to Director Sophia Hao, she expands on the reference to a 1987 book by the political thinker Jacques Rancière,
The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation. “The whole idea [of the book] was to dissolve [educational] hierarchy, [instead] teaching through learning. It was controversial across Europe.” While Hao admits the true story of an exile teaching Flemish students French from scratch, without knowing any Flemish, is interesting, she describes the project’s further expansion into deeper considera
In the grand scheme of provocative exhibition titles, The Ignorant Art School surely has to rank in the top tier. Particularly, you might note, given that this particular programme takes place in the Cooper Gallery, the exhibition space at Dundee’s Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design – or at least it would if we weren’t currently all locked up in our own personal coops. And whilst some might think that the curator in question may have to batten down the hatches in the face of angry art school tutors – well, art schools really aren’t like that. This is the kind of apparent dissent that art schools secretly revel in, or at least, I strongly suspect they do.