Critic and Educator Nicolas Bourriaud has been dismissed from his post as the director of the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts by Fleur Pellerin, French minister of culture, following a lengthy exchange over the direction of the school.  “Dear friends, the Minister [of Culture] has just fired me ‘for reasons related to a change of direction’ of her politics,” Bourriaud wrote on Facebook.  “Not a single factual argument in the course of a forty-five-minute discussion.” (more…)

Amid a New York State Attorney’s investigation and the resignation of five board of trustee members at Cooper Union, the University’s embattled President Jamshed Bharucha has resigned.  Bharucha headed Cooper during its controversial decision to begin charging tuition, and has been the subject of numerous protest actions since.  He will take a position as visiting scholar at Harvard. (more…)

In a perhaps unprecedented move, the entire first year class at USC’s Roski School of Arts MFA Program have dropped out of the program, protesting moves by Dean Erica Muhl to overhaul the department’s structure and funding models.  “Whatever artistic work we created this spring semester was achieved in spite of, not because of, the institution,” the seven students wrote in an open letter announcing their withdrawal.  “Because the university refused to honor its promises to us, we are returning to the workforce degree-less and debt-full.” (more…)

An article in the New Statesman takes a hard look at the state of British art schools this week, noting tuition fees higher than anywhere else in Europe, and a change in the curriculum that has changed how students practice, both of which have limited access to education for lower income classes and discouraged Britain’s famously egalitarian higher education system. (more…)

Vik Muniz has ventured to Brazil for his newest project, opening an art and technology school in the Vidigal neighborhood of São Paulo for young students.  Developed in conjunction with MIT, The Escola do Vidigal (Vidigal School) follows a similar arts and technology centre Muniz worked on in 2006 in Rio.   “We want to prepare kids to live and exist in a very visually challenging environment and to be able to act as producers as well as consumers,” Muniz said last year in an interview with Art Newspaper. (more…)

Protestors with Signs at the Free Cooper Union rally, via Art Observed

Earlier this afternoon, students, professors, politicians and more gathered to protest Cooper Union‘s decision to institute tuition for the upcoming school year. The alma mater of artists such as George Segal, Alex Katz, and Eva Hesse, Cooper Union has traditionally been a tuition-free school, offering opportunities to study art, architecture, and engineering to those who might not be able to afford other programs of equal quality. When Cooper Union announced in 2013 that it would begin to charge tuition in the fall of 2014, the backlash was immediate as students organized sit-ins, occupations, and, earlier this year, a lawsuit filed against the school’s Board of Trustees by the Committee to Save Cooper Union (CSCU). The Bruce High Quality Foundation, an arts collective founded with members primarily drawn from Cooper Union graduates, has also been active in their support of CSCU.  (more…)

A group of professors, admitted students and alumni from the Cooper Union have filed a lawsuit against the school’s Board of Trustees, in an attempt to halt the charging of tuition against students next fall, and to force an investigation into how the board has handled the school’s finances over the past several years.  “The Board of Trustees has permitted the school to engage in numerous financial transactions that bear no reasonable relationship to the educational purposes of The Cooper Union,” the lawsuit alleges. (more…)

A major fire broke out yesterday at the Glasgow School of Art, reportedly caused by the explosion of a projector in the basement of the Charles Rennie Mackintosh building.  The school has reported that all occupants were evacuated safely with no casualties, but damage has been sustained to the building and the works of art inside, including works made in preparation for the school’s degree show.  “We didn’t think it was anything but we had to go out and then we saw smoke coming out and realised that it was really bad. It got to the point where flames were coming out of the top floor,” says student Hugh Thornhill.  “All that effort is gone, everyone’s work on that side of the building is ruined. Even if it didn’t catch fire it will be damaged extensively.” (more…)

Anish Kapoor spoke with The Guardian this week in the run-up to his new show of work, Kapoor in Berlin at the Martin-Gropius-Bau in the German capital, speaking about the countries’ support of the arts, and its stark contrast to Great Britain.  “In Germany, it seems that the intellectual and aesthetic life are to be celebrated and are seen as part of a real and good education, whereas in Britain, traditionally – certainly since the Enlightenment – we’ve been afraid of anything intellectual, aesthetic, visual.” (more…)