Last night, we traveled to Sunset Park, Brooklyn, to breach the rarely open studio doors of the anonymous art collective Bruce High Quality Foundation (BHQF). The occasion was a fundraising event supporting its sister project, the Bruce High Quality Foundation University (BHQFU), an art school which, since 2009, has thoroughly shed any incognito outsider status to become a semi-official art institution.
Upon entering the factory-like building, a fashionable crew of students and Foundation associates welcomed us to the sixth floor studio-turned-party space. Tables covered in stretched canvas invited eager attendees to make their mark on what will presumably be integrated into the BHQF’s oeuvre. Waiters served chips and salsa cradled in an upside down umbrella. Outfits ranged from vibrantly colorful to creatively monochromatic, even progressing to topless-chic as the night came to a close.
The undeniable fashion fluency of attendees (including celebrities, students, and Bruces) begged the question: would any of the lookbook-worthy items circulating the space live in the closets of the thousands of students—from diverse socio-economic backgrounds—that attend the University’s free, public courses?
Jayson Musson (a.k.a. Hennessy Youngman), famed for his YouTube ART THOUGHTZ addressing what BHQF has referred to as the "MFA industrial complex," expressed his enthusiasm for the University’s mission of free, alternative, non-hierarchical art education, he told OC. While he found his own MFA useful in terms of giving him the time and space to develop his ideas, Jayson privileges art communities, coops, and collaboration over diplomas—which is the keystone of the BHQFU pedagogical model. Understanding that this approach to education is somewhat utopian, he noted, “It’s worth it even if it fails.”
Actor Waris Ahluwalia also showed his support. He explained his interest in the University project in three simple words: “Free arts education.”
It’s hard to critique such a democratic model of education; however, there are many questions regarding the evolution of the University, the reality of its demographic audience, and its relationship to the Foundation art collective, which birthed the University as a socially engaged art project, but has since, somewhat nebulously, cut the umbilical cord in an attempt to re-brand the University as a legitimate non-profit community center. “We don't think of [the University] as a work of art,” Bruce, the anonymous fictional founder of the collective, explained in an interview.
Curious about the Foundation and University’s evolutions, we interviewed Bruce—or in reality, the Bruces. Their earnest responses, though primarily straightforward, confirm that the collective, while evolving, still values uncertainty and humorous evasiveness.
JORDAN CARTER: To what extent is the BHQFU associated with the BHQF art collective? How did the University evolve and branch out of its art collective roots?
BRUCE: The Foundation continues to be actively involved in the administration of the University, but it really has a life all of its own at this point. The University was always intended as an expansive community of artists who feel they can learn something from being exposed to multiple points of view. In that sense, it shares its creative kernel with the collaborative practice of the Foundation.
In 2010, I visited the BHQFU space in its nascent stage; it was a dank and run down space, unidentifiable to the public—a boys' c
Upon entering the factory-like building, a fashionable crew of students and Foundation associates welcomed us to the sixth floor studio-turned-party space. Tables covered in stretched canvas invited eager attendees to make their mark on what will presumably be integrated into the BHQF’s oeuvre. Waiters served chips and salsa cradled in an upside down umbrella. Outfits ranged from vibrantly colorful to creatively monochromatic, even progressing to topless-chic as the night came to a close.
The undeniable fashion fluency of attendees (including celebrities, students, and Bruces) begged the question: would any of the lookbook-worthy items circulating the space live in the closets of the thousands of students—from diverse socio-economic backgrounds—that attend the University’s free, public courses?
Jayson Musson (a.k.a. Hennessy Youngman), famed for his YouTube ART THOUGHTZ addressing what BHQF has referred to as the "MFA industrial complex," expressed his enthusiasm for the University’s mission of free, alternative, non-hierarchical art education, he told OC. While he found his own MFA useful in terms of giving him the time and space to develop his ideas, Jayson privileges art communities, coops, and collaboration over diplomas—which is the keystone of the BHQFU pedagogical model. Understanding that this approach to education is somewhat utopian, he noted, “It’s worth it even if it fails.”
Actor Waris Ahluwalia also showed his support. He explained his interest in the University project in three simple words: “Free arts education.”
It’s hard to critique such a democratic model of education; however, there are many questions regarding the evolution of the University, the reality of its demographic audience, and its relationship to the Foundation art collective, which birthed the University as a socially engaged art project, but has since, somewhat nebulously, cut the umbilical cord in an attempt to re-brand the University as a legitimate non-profit community center. “We don't think of [the University] as a work of art,” Bruce, the anonymous fictional founder of the collective, explained in an interview.
Curious about the Foundation and University’s evolutions, we interviewed Bruce—or in reality, the Bruces. Their earnest responses, though primarily straightforward, confirm that the collective, while evolving, still values uncertainty and humorous evasiveness.
JORDAN CARTER: To what extent is the BHQFU associated with the BHQF art collective? How did the University evolve and branch out of its art collective roots?
BRUCE: The Foundation continues to be actively involved in the administration of the University, but it really has a life all of its own at this point. The University was always intended as an expansive community of artists who feel they can learn something from being exposed to multiple points of view. In that sense, it shares its creative kernel with the collaborative practice of the Foundation.
In 2010, I visited the BHQFU space in its nascent stage; it was a dank and run down space, unidentifiable to the public—a boys' c