The Studio: History, myth and legacy. On the changing nature of the space used by artists and the work being done there

This paper examines a history of the studio via a chronological mapping to reveal the studio’s enduring yet mercurial nature and its capacity to critically respond to shifts in culture, social custom and ideological practices. Linked to this chronological mapping are myths perpetuated by and about the studio. These myths contain and maintain various connections to this site of creativity from ‘hallowed space’ and ‘instrument of art’ to a call for its demise and ‘extinction’. This paper seeks to account for current rhetoric that declares a lack of ‘critical scholarship’ on the studio. By tracing the rise and fall of the studio and associated myths that often maintain our romance with the studio, this paper seeks to background the nature of the studio, to foreground ways in which the studio functions across the arts today, as a site for creativity and learning, particularly in the university in the early twenty-first century.