Do we visit museums to be taught, amused, challenged or affirmed? Should curators legislate how they want their exhibitions to be understood?

Who is really served by the mad rush of dealers to show work by recent graduates?

What do lectures reveal about the lecturer?

Educating the educators, ivory tower activism and an enlightening visit to the zoo

The shock cancellation of Manifesta 6 raises questions about the role of contemporary art in contested regions

In ‘Life in Film’, an ongoing series, frieze asks artists and filmmakers to list the movies that have influenced their practice.

Brian O’Doherty/Patrick Ireland is an artist and writer. His novels include The Strange Case of Mademoiselle P. (1992); and The Deposition of Father McGreevey (1999), which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2000. Other writings include Inside the White Cube (1976); and American Masters: The Voice and the Myth (1998). His recent exhibition at Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, ‘Beyond the White Cube: A Retrospective of Brian O’Doherty/Patrick Ireland’, will travel to New York University’s Grey Gallery next year. He lives in New York City and Todi, Italy.

An arts degree, some experts claim, is now one of the most desirable qualifications in the world of business. Yet cross-pollination comes with a high risk of failure – is it worth it?

Oberhausen, Germany

Making room for learning and un-learning; jugglers and public space

Joseph Beuys set up more educational institutions and political parties than most people know jokes. Was he, as has been claimed, aspiring to be the last Modernist visionary or seeking to undermine the role of authority figures by becoming one himself?

A translated excerpt from a Jonathan Meese performance.

The individual, the communal; theatricality and authenticity

Many of the most interesting American Conceptual artists of the 1960s and ‘70s became teachers in art schools such as the California Institute of the Arts and Yale. What is the legacy of their teaching for a generation of painters including Laura Owens, Monique Prieto, Lisa Yuskavage and John Currin?

The artist and Slade teacher discusses the past, present and future state of art schools in Britain

Three lecturers from art academies in the USA, Germany and the UK reflect upon the strengths and failings of art education today

The communication of knowledge and the parameters of educational systems

The invention of the Sony Portapak in 1967 – the first mass-produced portable video camera – encouraged artists to experiment with a dizzying new range of approaches and technologies, prompting the launch of the video journal Radical Software

Many of the key independent curators of the 1990s are now running major European art centres. Their radical and inclusive approach to the function of the gallery has been coined ‘new institutionalism’

Mass- and miscommunication; interviews and re-enactments

Education programmes have assumed a central role in museums and art galleries. Who are they for and what are the ramifications for art?

Roy Ascott’s radical ‘Groundcourse’ at the Ealing and Ipswich Art Schools in the 1960s was as influential as it was unorthodox in its approach to teaching art