In the words of the university:

The academy as ‘enabler’

The art academy in Nuremberg provides a creative hands-on space in which apparent self-evidences can be sounded out and uncertainties turned into creative products. Within our liberal range of studies, we seek to enable a wide spectrum of forms and manifestations of contemporary artistic practice, while positioning them in the relevant social and historical-critical context. For our understanding of the academy also includes an engagement with ‘the’ history and theory of art, true to the spirit of a famous maxim, once coined by an artist of a vehemently non-academic character, around 150 years ago: “To know in order to do” (Gustave Courbet). The individual classes in particular, provide those productive frameworks within which core study missions can be realised: to inquire and challenge, explore and – especially in view of the many studios and opportunities to exhibit – to experiment, debate openly and respectfully disagree, and of (self) empowerment and (self) enabling. Thus, regardless of whether students study fine or applied art or art education (ultimately our courses share more common than divisive aspects), the academy lets them develop a personal artistic stance, while also crystallising their individual character. This process entails constant questioning of their position in relation to the present, and an appreciation of their role as part of a fundamentally internationalised field of work, the diversity of which unlocks wider horizons of creative activity for their own art practice.