The last meeting of the second season of ABCD, Arts Boston Contemporary Dialogue, moderated by Bill Arning at MIT on April 5, had as its subject, "The Anomalous Museum: Arts Spaces in Institutions of Higher Learning." The panelists included: Laura Donaldson, acting director of the gallery and visiting artists program at Montserrat College of Art, Joe Ketner, the director of the Rose Art Museum, at Brandeis University, Linda Norden, associate curator of contemporary art of the Fogg Art Museum, at Harvard University, and Judith Tannenbaum, curator of contemporary art at the Museum of the Rhode Island School of Design.

Following the overall mandate of the insightful ABCD series, the evening was devoted to a narrowly focused issue. With the many institutions of higher learning in the Greater Boston area, in this case reaching as far away as Providence, Rhode Island, it was certainly a relevant and complex topic. Other ABCD panels had been hosted this year at Suffolk University, The Rose Art Museum and the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Garden.

In the Green Room, well the List offices, as the panelists gathered and went over their agenda for the evening, Bill expressed doubts as to whether the panel would draw an audience for such an esoteric, however important, topic. There was also stiff competition: Openings at a group of galleries on Thayer Street, and the opening of a show of sculpture curated by and from the collection of Ken Freed at Green Street. Nevertheless there was a solid audience of some 75 who listened attentively to what the curators had to say.

The individuals covered a range of issues and approaches. Donaldson, a very young curator who is an applicant for a permanent position at her institution, described a rapid rise from preparator to acting curator with a mandate to mount as many as 50 shows, great and small, in an art school with a variety of exhibition spaces serving a campus with some 500 students. Tannenbaum and Norden discussed serving as the very first contemporary curators at very old and distinguished museums. Positions that have only been created in the past few years. They were frank in discussing their challenges and reservations of fitting contemporary art into the context of such venerable institutions with great historical collections. In that context Contemporary art is viewed with some suspicion and apprehension.

And Ketner, now in the third plus year at his post, has seen the Rose through a controversial new addition, increased emphasis on hanging a great contemporary collection, and serving as a kind of one man show mounting important temporary exhibitions. The Rose is about to open a major show of work by Roxy Paine.

It was a great evening. Arning brought out the best in the panel and kept it moving with lively and provocative questions before opening up the discussion to the audience. Then one of the best aspects of the ABCD series occurred when Kathy Bitetti, a young and superb curator, asked Norden a question about funding. Norden, in turn asked Bitetti who she was and what institution she represented. Bingo. That is exactly the kind of connection and networking that ABCD was mandated to initiate. Linda meet Kathy. Kathy meet Linda.

Indeed, it was the first time I had seen Norden in the flesh, even though she has been here for three and a half years and I have heard great things about her. It just seems that Cambridge is on the other side of the Charles. Having lived in Harvard Square for the better half of my adult life, it seems too traumatic to revisit. Plus, most of the Fogg shows with their heavy academic orientation have not proved to be overly enticing to make the trip. They may be great shows and well researched but not quite my cup of tea.

But Norden, whom I chatted with after the panel, was anxious to have me see her show, Extreme Connoiseurship, which was entering its last week. That would prove to be an important base line for further discussion. After a bout of e mail tag it was decided that I would pop over between classes. But, on her end, it was impossible to break loose from appointments other than for a few precious minutes. Deal.

We met briefly, after I had toured the show. But the discussion proved to be too lively and provocative. It didn’t seem to make sense to explore such rich material while watching the clock. I decided to break it off with the hope that we might meet later after the semester (she teaches art history as well as curating and managing the 20^th century collection). But even then she somewhat intensely referred to the many demands on her time and life including a husband of many years and two kids. Fair enough. I’m pretty busy too.

What I did find refreshing and tantalizing, however, was her very open disclosure as to whether or not her show really worked. My thoughts precisely. But so refreshing that a curator is willing to initiate that for discussion. She offered that what we appear to have in common is a desire for dialogue and she hoped that the exhibition proved provocative and insightful in raising relevant issues.

There was some brief discussion of the familiar issue of just how much time a viewer is willing to commit to viewing videos. In this case several by Paul McCarthy, Yvonne Rainer, Bruce Nauman and others. As well as a number of conceptual pieces. Some striking drawings by Bridget Riley, and a Donald Judd, literally, out in the hall. A narrow hall at that. Talk about quirky. It was indeed extreme. And I look forward to picking up the discussion at a later time.

Her show was divided between the Fogg and the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts which is next to the Fogg.

It was, indeed, a lively time to be visiting the Le Corbusier designed, eccentric, Carpenter Center. The firing of its director, Ellen Phelan, was the subject that week (April 15 newsstand date) of a New Yorker article by Calvin Tomkins, "Can Art Be Taught?: How a dismissal at Harvard threw an entire field into question." There was a similar article focused on academic arts turmoil by Christine Temin, in the April 10, issue of the Boston Globe, "Respected curators leaving Wellesley: Split illustrates tensions as college museums serve academic arts." Interestingly enough she quotes Arning from the MIT based ABCD panel (which she failed to either attend or acknowledge). Her article discusses changes initiated by the new director of the Davis Museum and Cultural Center, David Mickenberg, including the departure after some 19 years of service, of curator, Judith Hoos Fox. There is also some question regarding the continuing status of another Wellesley curator of long standing, Lucy Flint-Gohlke. Similar changes occurred with new directors at the Rose and the ICA.

The Phelan firing has brought to the fore some of the primary issues of contemporary art in an academic setting. For one thing: Does it belong there? At Harvard at least the short term answer seems to be, not really. Or not that way. Or al least not Phelan’s way. Even though everyone close to the issue would readily say that she brought Harvard into the forefront of thinking about and actually creating contemporary art.

The Fogg, arguably one of the world’s greatest museum collections and teaching institutions, has trained generations of art historians, curators and museum directors. It has been a great place to look at and think about art. But it has had a more uneasy relationship with living artists, even though they occasionally celebrate them, generally established masters, with learned shows, thick catalogues, and sumptuous amenities. But we are talking Ellsworth Kelly, Brice Marden, and currently, Mel Bochner (a show curated by a student). The Bochner show was rather good actually. But not a lot of risk taking here.

Actually getting paint on your hands and jeans, however, that’s quite another matter. It’s ok as a kind of dilettante activity, part of being a well rounded individual and all that. But not, for heavens sake, as a serious ambition and even profession. Harvard is not in the business, not now, perhaps not never, of producing actual artists.

Phelan tried. Boy did she try. And she got a lot of her friends, and those of her husband, sculptor, Joel Shapiro, to come to Cambridge and stir the sauce. The faculty and adjuncts were stunning. Including a certain art critic for the New Yorker. Not Tomkins, the other guy. But they must have talked.

In the basement of the Carpenter Center is a current show, Abstraction and Realism, great work, piss poor installation, curated by Klaus Kertess with his students in a Senior Tutorial. The show includes stunning works by Tim Gardner, Louise Bourgeois, an enormous Jenny Seville, Catherine Murphy, Collier Schorr and Wayne Thiebaud, to mention just a few of the dozen artists. Considering that they are so poorly hung, in an area that seems more like a bulletin board than and exhibition space, it is staggering that the show includes such important works by first class artists. But then, it is Kertess, and, drum roll, Harvard.

It is indicative of the kind of rabbits that Phelan was able to pull out of her well connected hat. The buzz was that she included her friends. OK, but doesn’t everybody. And, what friends.

But Harvard found Phelan and her crew a bit unruly. Even from brilliant artists that isn’t quite done. After all we are talking about Harvard and all that. The recent former home of Cornell West who is off to Princeton. His rather unHarvard move was to cut a rap CD. More power to him. That leaves just Skip minding the gate. Not a very soulful place it would appear.

Yale, however, has its famous school of fine arts. For decades it has been a leader in the field drawing distinguished faculty and producing generations of leading artists. So, what’s the problem?

Can a great university maintain the highest academic and intellectual standards and still train and attract artists? On this point Tomkins quotes Harold Rosemberg.

"Can there be any doubt that training in the university has contributed to the cool, impersonal wave in the art of the sixties," he observed in 1960. Tomkins states, "In order to become an academic discipline, art had to be intellectualized. Craft and technique were subordinated to verbal analysis, problem solving and critical theory. University art teaching, in fact, became more and more like academic research, with the pursuit of ideas as its primary goal."

During the Renaissance artists learned their craft as apprentices to masters. You started by sweeping the studio and gradually progressed to working on murals and monumental sculpture before leaving to pursue your own career. During the era of Napoleon L’Ecole des beaux arts, the Academy, was founded to train artists and architects to serve the needs of the state. This was the tradition that persisted until the modern era and the all important BFA and MFA programs. Even a generation ago, artists graduated from certificate programs fully trained in the craft and studio traditions. Now they, "major" in studio and "minor" in philosophy and theory. This seems to be the norm and sells better to parents and students undertaking an art education as it implies some security. With a BFA, the logic goes, one can then go on to get an, MFA. That in turn will get you a tenure track teaching position and you will live happily every after teaching introduction to graphic design in Nebraska. God willing.

Question is: What does that have to do with being an artist? And, what happened to the craft of art when we got inundated with the theory of art. Do the current generation of artists pumped out in the thousands by the nations colleges and universities really know much about actually making art or what being an artist really entails. Most haven’t a clue but they can manage themselves through crits. Is there a difference.

As a visiting critic at a small New England college facing an auditorium of some 100 or student, I recently asked how many wanted to be artists. Half put up their hands. Then I asked how many were willing to tell me why they wanted to be artists. Fifty hands rapidly descended. There is a message in there.

But I do think than an education in studio art, combining studio and a whole menu of other requirement, including art history, is not a failure if every graduate does not continue to make art. I see much value in the education itself. Just as every student who majors in creative writing does not go on to be a published poet or author. That too seems perfectly fine to me.

Prior to bringing Phelan to Harvard in what is now perhaps a radical and brilliant but failed experiment, the university, internally agonized long and hard. Perhaps it was just not the right fit. In moving ahead brilliantly and aggressively she failed to respect the ancient and venerable protocols. For this she has my respect and admiration. She is the Shakelton of art at Harvard. Never reached her goal but lived to tell the tale, damaged and bloodied, with a spread in the New Yorker.

Perhaps she should not have stated in a meeting, as quoted by Tomkins, ‘Those cocksuckers in University Hall.’ Perhaps there is a ring of truth to that. But it is just not quite what a department chair says at a department meeting at Harvard. But it is what an artist would say. And sometimes that presents tough decisions for artists. Are they going to remain true to their identities as artists or play the academic game? Phelan has been replaced by an insider from the English department. And not on a temporary basis. Sounds like the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts is under house arrest.

The Harvard case study has potential to resonate on campuses great and small. It does raise the issue of the role, presence, behavior and restraints on the creative artists in an academic environment. Do professors in other departments tend to act out in such a colorful and outrageous manner? The answer is probably yes. But somehow the other disciplines seem more entrenched. Nobody is questioning their validity and status in the university. They get grants and bring in money for research. The creative arts programs just seem to squander university resources. Why fund studios and exhibition programs when we could spend that money on expanding computer labs.

While Harvard is wrestling with this issue, other colleges and universities have long established and progressive programs. Williams College, for example, has a superb art museum and the resources and support of the nearby Clark Art Institute and Mass MoCA. It inspires undergraduates and offers MA degrees that have trained many leading curators and museum directors. Dartmouth has long used the resources of the Hood Museum and has a distinguished program for visiting artists. My alma mater, Brandeis University, had a superb program combining studio and art history. For a long time I often though I should have gone on to a MFA program, rather than the MA I earned in art history, but, in the long run, it really didn’t matter. The thinking process of what I learned in the studio and lecture hall has served me well.