The Veil in Art School: A Dialogue on Vagueness, Materiality and Infection

Abstract

The word ‘veil’ infers the act of covering and uncovering at once. In Western art, the veil performs as a material device that articulates, enhances, and controls space; and as an epistemological metaphor for expressing the revelation of knowledge. In this way, the veil functions to both reveal and conceal truth to gain greater understanding. This investigation of the veil intersects with scholarship on vagueness in tertiary art education in order to gain insight into the dynamics, pathologies, and potentials of studio teaching. Within a contemporary Fine Arts education, there is an important divide between discursive and conceptual responses rooted in abstract thought and the vagueness associated with analogical visual learning. By leaving space for vagueness, art school teaching staffs negotiate the pedagogical veil as an instrument of control as well as a path towards transcendence. Likewise, students construct their own material veils – their interactions mediated by gaps in expectations and understanding (e.g. cultural, social). Thus, the studio environment becomes a permeable medium through which students are exposed to and infected by heterogenous knowledge and experience. This paper argues that art students’ experiences of veiled learning are inextricable from revelation and infection. Through a narrative dialogue between two artists – teacher and student – the paper considers the productive nature and impact of vagueness in studio pedagogies. The dialogue is supported by practice-led research into the veil’s symbolic and material qualities.