60 THE ART NEWSPAPER Number 284, November 2016
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UK and rest of
world Kath Boon
Tel: +44 (0)20 3416 9000Axing art history in schools
devalues our cultural life
The plan to scrap the A-level examination is disastrous and must be challenged
Correction
- In our review
“Porcelain’s poor relation”
(The Art Newspaper,
Review, October, p26),
Luisa Mengoni’s title
was given incorrectly.
She is the head of the
V&A Gallery, Shekou, in
Shenzhen, China.
GEOFFREY
QUILLEY
Professor of art
history, University
of SussexT
he art history A-level,
taken by students aged
16 to 18, is being axed
by AQA, one of the
organisations that sets
school examinations in
England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
This decision is disastrous and ill-
considered, and must be challenged.
Students in the department of art
history at the University of Sussex and
elsewhere, as well as professionals
working as teachers and in museums
and auction houses around the world,
are outraged by this decision, which has
seemingly been taken with government
backing. Without the art history A-level,
they would have had no idea that they
could pursue the subject at university
and forge careers in the field.
There is the basic issue of the
visibility of art history as a discipline
in schools and colleges, and of the
value of the subject within secondary
education generally. We have had
many students who have transferred
to art history from other subjects, such
as English or music, having previously
been unaware that the subject is a
degree option because they had had no
exposure to it at school. The impact on
recruitment to art history at university
level will be significant.SERIOUS PROBLEMArt history needs to be expanded—not
curtailed or abolished—across the
A-level landscape, both to counter its
stereotype (usually used maliciously
by commentators who ought to
know better) as a “soft option” only
ofered at private schools but also, and
much more importantly, to stress the
subject’s enormous educational value
across the state sector.
We live in a world saturated by
images and in a society constantly
exposed to issues of cultural patrimony,
heritage and artistic value. Art history
is uniquely placed to engage with
the complexities of the interchange
between the visual and the past,
which matters so much to how we
understand ourselves, and what we
value, in the present. In this respect,
at Sussex we have actively contributed
to plans for the development of the
proposed new A-level curriculum,which was lauded by the examinations
watchdog Ofqual as being engaging,
inclusive, modern and relevant. This
would form a platform to encourage
more schools, especially in the state
sector, to ofer the subject at A-level.
We are still awaiting a detailed
explanation from AQA of the rationale
behind the decision, but the informa-
tion we do have suggests that it is based
on the diiculty of standardising grades
for A-level subjects that attract rela-
tively small numbers of students across
the country. This flies in the face of the
ambitious plans of the Association of
Art Historians to increase the number
of 16- to 18-year-old students taking the
subject in state schools, which were to
start in earnest (and with significant
input from academics and arts profes-
sionals) next year.
It also raises some fundamental
questions about the social and
economic responsibilities of
examination boards, which, it is now
clear, wield an extraordinary amountThis move marks an
increasing tendency
towards government-
sponsored philistinism
Students learn about Titian’s Bacchus
and Ariadne at the National Gallery
in Londonof power in regard to decisions about
what young people get to study.
A balance clearly has to be struck
between the need for rigorously
imposed grade boundaries and the
knowledge and experiences that we, as
a society, believe young people should
have the opportunity to be exposed
to. But when the requirements of
the former triumph over compelling
arguments made for the latter by some
of the world’s leading academics and
cultural figures, then we may have a
very serious problem.
This is why we hope that AQA
will enter into a dialogue with the
abundance of academic and industry
experts who have reached out in
the hope that we can find a way of
addressing the issues they raise and
making the A-level viable. If there is
a will for the A-level to succeed, then
I am confident that together we can
find a way to make this happen. But
this will involve a frank, open and
constructive dialogue.DENYING POTENTIALTo axe the A-level is to deny the educa-
tional potential of a hugely rich, vital
and multidisciplinary subject to future
generations of 16- to 18-year-olds. This
is a government-induced curbing of the
horizons of young people rather than
an expansion of them, which is what
government and educational authori-
ties ought to be engaged in.
The larger point, therefore, is not
about universities and recruitment at
all: this move, together with the axing
of the A-levels in archaeology and
classics, marks an increasing tendency
towards government-sponsored phil-
istinism and the devaluing of arts and
humanities generally in our society.
This is particularly worrying now, as
it coincides with the proposed Higher
Education and Research Bill, which
opens the door to unprecedented
levels of government intervention in
higher education, including university
agendas for research and curricula.
Art history, far from being a “soft
option”, ofers a multiplicity of routes
into understanding cultural, social
and global histories, through the
deeply complex analysis of images and
artefacts. This engagement with the
understanding of cultural complexity is
perhaps more vital now than it has been
for generations. To axe the A-level is
not just to harm educational provision
at secondary and tertiary levels: it is to
devalue the culture in which we live.Letters70 South Lambeth Road, London, SW8 1RL, UK [email protected]
The Serpentine supports female artists
We were very sorry to have missed the opportunity to take part
in the Guerrilla Girls’ survey for their Whitechapel show (“The
Guerrilla Girls name and shame”, The Art Newspaper, Frieze
Art Fair daily edition, 6 October, p4). Regrettably, the email
questionnaire to the Serpentine’s general information inbox was
forwarded to neither our curatorial team nor the directors’ oice.
It is hugely important to the Serpentine that we present abalanced programme. The galleries have hosted 12 major solo
shows by women in the past five years, with Lynette Yiadom-
Boakye’s 2015 exhibition, Verses After Dusk, the most visited
in our history. We are currently exhibiting 2016 Turner Prize
nominee Helen Marten, with solo shows of Zaha Hadid and
Lucy Raven coming this winter. The galleries will continue to
champion women artists across the generations throughout all
areas of our programme.
Lizzie Carey-Thomas, head of programmes, Serpentine Galleries