Margrét Elísabet Ólafsdóttir
Professor of Fine Art Theory and Head of Theory at the Fine Art Department of the Iceland University of the Arts.
Hugarflug annual conference on artistic research
11. - 12. September 2025
Iceland University of the Arts
In an article on systems aesthetics, Jack Burnham argued that the transformations occurring in visual art at the close of the 1960s could be likened to what Thomas Kuhn described as a “paradigm shift” in the sciences. Such paradigm shifts, according to Kuhn, lead to scientific revolutions, and Burnham maintained that the developments in art around 1970 constituted nothing less than a revolution. When one examines the subsequent changes in art education in Iceland and across the Western world in the following decades, it may be argued that this revolution precipitated significant structural changes in art education at all levels of the educational system. In Iceland, this was reflected in the establishment of comprehensive primary schools, the introduction of dedicated art programs at the upper secondary level, and ultimately, the founding of the Iceland University of the Arts, which consolidated higher education in all artistic disciplines under a single institutional framework. This presentation will examine these developments, with particular emphasis on their impact on the field of visual art.