IHEAP

The Institute des hautes études en arts plastiques (IHEAP) is a post-graduate institute for research and experimentation in art, based in Paris. Reactivated in 2012 by the current Biennale de Paris, IHEAP shares its name with the original iteration founded by Pontus Hulten in 1988 as an alternative to the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts. IHEAP offers participants a course of study intended to liberate them from the inherited ideas of 20th century art history, instead proposing inquiry into the crucial issues of art in the 21st century by encouraging participants to explore new pistes for research. The course, a mixture of theory and practice, stresses the development of immaterial artistic practices over a period of two years. Although not a studio-based program, IHEAP approaches the city-as-studio. IHEAP seeks individuals with singular and extreme practices, who want to change their artistic or professional activity; who, after several years of art school, want to break free of alienated learning; who expect more from a school than a framework for artistic production; who reject art as it is commonly practiced; and who wish to work on essential issues within intimate and experimental conditions.