The article investigates the contradictions associated with the formation and institutionalization of academic disciplines, and explores the anchoring of art education as a discipline in tertiary education. The text thus pursues an attempt to provide a conceptual framework for the further development of art education and its disciplining in Switzerland. From their different institutional and research positions, the authors negotiate disciplinary and institutional relationships in the writing process itself. Thereby, interdisciplinarity as a characteristic of art education is essential to the undertaking and raises a number of questions: to what extent is a distinction from reference disciplines possible by disciplining art education as interdisciplinary? And how can the dichotomy that to a great extent characterizes the understanding of art education be overcome? What does an inquiring self-understanding entail and how can the lack of a disciplines tradition in this subject be dealt with? How big of a part do institutional structures play and what is the role of self-reflection in the process of stabilization?