“...a project that could make the coming season especially exciting: the unaccredited, free art school (started by) the artist collective known as the Bruce High Quality Foundation...Whatever happens, this latest move by the Bruce High Quality Foundation adds inspirational heft to its motto : Professional problems. Amateur solutions.”
—Roberta Smith, The New York Times
The Bruce High Quality Foundation University (B.H.Q.F.U.) is an unaccredited, free collaborative school founded by the eponymous artist collective and presented by Creative Time, where “students are teachers are administrators are staff.” B.H.Q.F.U. responds to what it views as the over commercialization of the current art school system, offering instead “an education in metaphor manipulation”. Admission is based on a peer-recommendation system; select public programming is also offered.
The university’s initial curriculum focuses on art history — specifically new and original contributions to — and studio critiques. Lecture topics include Occult Shenanigans in 20th/21st Century Art, What’s a Metaphor?, The B.H.Q.F.U. Detective Agency, and Edifying. Marking the end of its inaugural semester, the exhibition, The Bruce High Quality Foundation University, will provide a review of themes germaine to semester study and project plans for the school’s future.
The work of the Bruce High Quality Foundation is also currently on view in the exhibition 1969 at the P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, LIC and will appear in the upcoming Whitney Biennial 2010 and Greater New York, P.S. 1.