AMP: Artists' Meeting Place and Resource Collective

from e-flux

Royal Academy of Art, The Hague
www.kabk.nl

The Royal Academy of Art, The Hague is an academy for Fine Arts and Design and offers bachelors, masters, preparatory courses, a postgraduate course and a PhD programme in close cooperation with the Royal Conservatoire and Leiden University. The Academy trains students to become self-aware artists and designers, able to make a meaningful contribution to their discipline and to society by means of their passion, deep expertise and experimental approach. Research plays an important role in all curricula offered by the Academy. Artists and designers who have graduated from our academy position themselves as research-based artists and relate as such to their discipline and to society. During the course of study students will consistently be confronted with their environment. We invite the art world into the Academy and search for confrontations with our audience. But we also engage in relations with partners who operate outside the cultural field. These forms of collaboration are an important link between the academy and society and require the entrepreneurial skills of our students.

The Royal Academy of Art prepares its students for an international professional practice. For this reason we use both English and Dutch as the language of instruction. The Master's program is entirely given in English. We maintain contacts with institutions all over the world. This international orientation is reflected in the composition of our academic community. With students coming from more than 60 countries every student learns to think internationally and interculturally as a matter of course.

We have a vacancy for the post of:

Head of the Fine Arts department – Bachelor – (0.6 fte)
as of August 2015 when the present head retires.
(Exact starting date in consultation)

The Fine Arts department educates students to become visual artists who are able to develop themselves as artists independently in an international context. Within the encouraging climate at the Academy students are taught to handle all aspects connected with being an artist. The cultivation of a professional attitude, command of the working process and theoretical training are indispensable elements. Self-criticism and awareness of the significance of one's own work in the context of the world of art and society at large are major conditions for the study in general and personal development in particular.

Teaching is subdivided into a propaedeutic phase and the main study. The propaedeutic phase covers an intensive and broad preliminary to the four disciplines that constitute the main part of the study: Painting, Free Graphics, Interdisciplinary Attitudes and 3D. Teams of teachers in these sections offer a continuing learning process based on their specific expertise. The limits of the disciplines are explored and breached.

Alongside the classes in the studios teaching is based on an intensive exhibiting programme. All aspects of bringing the fine arts to the attention of the public are dealt with inside and outside the Academy in tandem with students' own development. Lectures also deal with the historical developments leading up to the present cultural and social situation in the arts. The new media have an important place in the teaching at the Academy given the fact that the fine arts are no longer bound to traditional techniques.

The head of the Fine Arts department is in charge of the teachers and coordinators for the fine arts. The head takes the current curriculum as the point of departure and will develop this further together with the teachers, for one thing by initiating and implementing artistic and didactic experiments. The head of the department also has some teaching responsibilities.

The head of the Fine Arts department takes part in the meetings of the management of the Academy and advises the director on the development of Academy and the education provided.

Key qualities of the new head of department
–a sound vision of international developments in the discipline and the ability to convert this into progressive and distinctive teaching programme
–an active practice in the fine arts, preferably as artist
–a relevant national and international network in the world of the fine arts
–broad experience in higher education specifically in curriculum development and the preparation of students for professional practice, and sound didactic skills
–support for the spearheads of the Academy which are research, enterprise and internationalisation and a vision of how to put these into teaching practice
–organisational skills, demonstrable experience of management and a feeling for interrelationships at senior management level, team builder with an inspiring personality that generates enthusiasm, flexibility, a light touch, accessible, involved and a powerful communicator
–good command of English and Dutch

Information and reply
If you are interested in this position, we kindly invite you to apply before May 28, 2015. Your letter of application with your CV can be sent to werving@kabk.nl.

If you wish to receive more information about this appointment please contact the director of the Royal Academy of Art, Marieke Schoenmakers, at m.schoenmakers@kabk.nl or call
T +31 70 315 47 24.