Professor Jeroen Lutters Says Farewell to ArtEZ and Presents Three New Publications

Photo: Boris Lutters

On 12 June, Professor of Art Education Jeroen Lutters will bid farewell to ArtEZ. During this occasion, he will mark both the end of his professorship and the beginning of a new phase in his life by presenting three recent publications to Tamara Rumiantsev, Director of the ArtEZ Research Centre.

After twelve years at ArtEZ, Lutters reflects on a period in which he sought to challenge and enrich thinking about art education—not through definitive conclusions, but through a continuously inquisitive attitude. As he puts it:

“I am always searching for the radical otherness of the human being.”

Throughout his work, one conviction remained central: art is not an addition to education, but its point of departure. Education is more than a skill; it is an art. From this perspective, within the professorship Art Education as Critical Tactics (AeCT), he developed concepts such as (no) university, artist educator, and art-based learning, in which art functions as a source of knowledge and insight.

His approach sometimes clashed with existing educational systems focused on control and uniformity. At the same time, it introduced new perspectives on what education can be: a creative, relational, and open process in which encounter takes center stage.

Art-Based (Un)Learning. Unexpected Dialogues with Artworks (Valiz, 2026)

This volume consists of around twenty articles by leading national and international thinkers in the field of arts and cultural education. Together, they explore learning from art as an open and creative domain. The book advocates forms of learning that make room for imagination through a process of ‘unlearning’: letting go of fixed knowledge structures in favor of new, personal insights. The publication brings together contributions from a wide range of disciplines—from art and design to sociology and healthcare—and demonstrates how art can function as a ‘teaching object’ that activates thought and imagination. The book is edited by Jeroen Lutters, Fabiola Camuti, and Rahul K. Gairola, and includes contributions by current and former ArtEZ professors and staff members, including Nishant Shah, Daniëlle Bruggeman, John Johnston, Jeroen van den Eijnde, and Marc Boumeester. This publication will be officially released on 23 July

De Poëzie van het Bestaan. Voorbije Passages (ArtEZ Press, 2026)

In this work, Lutters delves deeper into the post-religious era in which we live and the question of how art can help fill the ‘God-shaped holes in existence’ (Salman Rushdie). At the heart of this artistic thinking is poetic thought, which does not oppose science but can reach beyond it. The work draws in part on experiences Lutters gained during his fellowship at the University of California. In this publication, he collaborates for the first time with his son, renowned photographer Boris Lutters. The book will be published on 12 June.

Rothko in St Ives (ArtEZ Press, 2026)

Lutters has frequently written about his encounters with artworks, including works by Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Richter, and Twombly. In this study, he describes his encounter with The Seagram Murals by Mark Rothko at Tate St Ives. It is a personal experience in which the artwork functions as a ‘speaking object.’ Not only the object itself, but the entire surrounding environment (Cornwall) participates in this ‘speech act.’ All of this leads to a deeper awareness of human mortality, beautifully visualized in a photo essay by Boris Lutters. This book will be published in early June.

Lutters himself prefers not to speak of retirement, but rather of a ‘third phase of life’: a period of deepening and maturation. He notes: “The most important task of this biographical phase for me is the completion of becoming human.” In the coming year, he will consciously step back from obligations in order to create space for reflection, writing, and time with family and friends.

With Lutters’s departure, ArtEZ bids farewell to a professor who repeatedly reopened and sharpened the conversation on art education. His emphasis on creativity as the most fundamental principle in the universe, and therefore the basis of practical human action, has left its mark on education, research, and the many students and colleagues with whom he worked.

The farewell event on 12 June will not only look back, but also ahead—in keeping with Lutters’s own practice, in which nothing is ever definitive, and everything remains in motion.

Read also the interview with Jeroen Lutters, in which, on the eve of a new phase in his life, he reflects on both the past and the future, not with a list of highlights, but with reflections that continue to shift, opinions that are never final, and a curiosity that never ceases.