For more than five decades, pedagogy has played a central role in Camnitzer’s practice. As an educator, he has advocated since the 1960s for the need for art to transcend the boundaries of its conventional parameters and institutions. That impulse is at the heart of A Museum Is a School. The artist’s touring site-specific installation is displayed prominently on the exterior of various arts institutions. By emphatically re-defining the museum, Camnitzer re-contextualizes the work housed inside. Under his proposal, art becomes a dynamic process rather than a product, a means of acquiring and developing knowledge; the museum becomes a forum for exchange; the artist becomes a facilitator rather than an authority.
While Camnitzer retains copyright to A Museum is a School, he has relinquished authorship. In turn, each institution with which he collaborates becomes accountable for the details of the unique contract forged with their audience.