Contextssubjects that can be studied at this level, and the personal capabilities fostered by this
system. in this chapter we aim to provide a conceptual framework for understanding
quality in any area, derived from examples in the creative arts, and thereby to show
how relevant criteria can be developed that encourage creative knowledge- building
in any subject.
Contextual introductionin 1884, artists whose works had been rejected (refusés) by the normative société des
artistes Française in paris, formed the salon des indépendents as a protest with the
motto ‘no jury nor awards’ (sans jury ni récompense). more than one hundred years ago
artists were beset by criteria and judgements, even within the professional realm of
arts practice. now that art has been ‘academicized’, we can find even more situations
in which art and artists are judged, against more or less explicit criteria. and much as
art might react against, and even define itself, as that which cannot be categorized,
judged or otherwise standardized, nonetheless the conventionalization of actions by
institutions and even by communities of practitioners themselves, follows hard on the
tail of anyone maintaining the view of art as revolutionary, unclassifiable and beyond
qualitative judgements. paradoxically, artistic judgements have become everyday food
for the international TV- audience through ‘reality shows’ on figure skating, diving,
gymnastics and other sports, and musical competitions in the format of the ‘idol’
franchise. Commenting on ‘artistic’ achievements, ranking and voting- off have become
a global media success.
into this context comes academicized art. of course, artists are not judged (or
perhaps they are judged?) by panels of celebrities. They are not judged on the basis
of who is the most entertaining, the most annoying or the most flamboyant ... but
they are entering into an environment in which judgements of performance extend
beyond mere competencies into qualitative judgements and a common opinion that
performance includes criteria beyond mere skills. one might argue that it had always
been thus, although in recent (modernist) times, artists were expected to also have
a touch of genius, a certain je ne sais quoi. in our more materialistic postmodernist
times we know exactly the quoi that makes us vote- off the unsuccessful reality show
competitor. Thus we might see a historical trend in professional arts practice that results
in artists no longer having to merely produce the artworks (as was perhaps the case in
1884), but also to have something to say about the work (as is required by winners of
the Turner prize), or to teach both theory and practice (as is common in university art
departments), or to add to knowledge by acting as a researcher through the media of
creative arts (as is problematized in this book). how these activities should or could
be judged has not always been clear. Certainly the artists’ knowledge of theory can
be judged in both academic and professional contexts, but judgements about artistic
quality are still passionately debated. Judgements of research excellence in the arts,
and whether the criteria for judging such artistic research can legitimately be copied
from other areas or whether it warrants something quite new, are also debated. if
artistic research is a kind of hybrid of professional and academic elements (as is argued
in Chapter 3), then are all the respective criteria of performance from both worlds
still present in this hybrid, or are some criteria to be sacrificed to compensate for the