The Bruce High Quality Foundation’s (BHQF) Teach 4 Amerika tour was a five-week, 11-city, coast-to-coast road trip that crossed state lines and institutional boundaries to inspire and enable local art students to define the future of their own educational experience. Traveling the byways of America in a limousine painted as a school bus, BHQF visited university art departments, art schools, art institutions, and alternative spaces across the nation, bringing together concerned educators, artists, arts administrators, and—most importantly—students to brainstorm on the future of art schools. What are they for? How should they be organized? If not for careers, what is the essence of art itself? These fundamental questions have long haunted artists, and the BHQF attempted to put the questions back in the hands of students across America. Curated by Nato Thompson, Chief Curator at Creative Time, Teach 4 Amerika included a combination of dynamic public rallies and intimate conversations hosted by local partners in New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Chicago, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Denver, Santa Fe, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Portland.

Teach 4 Amerika was presented in partnership with 1419, Carnegie Mellon, College for Creative Studies, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, Detroit SOUP, The Experimental College of the Twin Cities (EXCO), Feldman Gallery at PNCA, Gallery 400 at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Illiterate Magazine, Los Angeles Country Museum of Art, LAXART, Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland State University Art and Social Practice MFA, Roots & Culture, San Francisco Art Institute, The Soap Factory, Southern Exposure, threewalls, Tyler School of Art, University of Minnesota, Vox Populi, The Waffle Shop, Walker Art Center, The Andy Warhol Museum, and Win Wear.

Bruce High Quality Foundation

Teach 4 Amerika

Traveling

2011