Authenticity

Just as with the previous segment on narrative, I feel that the author of our text presented a less conceptual picture of authenticity and its role in art than I might have done.  In doing so, I feel that he may have missed some key points.  I hope it's ok to critically analyze and refute our text, even though, overall, I think it's an awesome book.  I'm going to go ahead and assume all is fair in learning and art.  To begin with, I think the author misinterprets Piero Manzonis work in asserting that one of the major themes in Tin Cans is authenticity.  On the contrary, I would say this work deals much more with ideas of humor, irony, and sarcasm.  The artist is thumbing his nose at the art establishment and the elitist old crones who are willing to buy anything deemed "important art", regardless of the outrageous cost and questionable content.  The artist is not really asking us whether or not we believe there is actually feces inside those cans.  It doesn't really matter.  Rather, he is saying "Hey, I'm an artist.  An artist! Does that mean my shit is worth it's weight in gold?"  It's a joke on many levels; a pun as well as a jab at the attitudes of people, both artists and collectors, who take themselves a bit too seriously.

In terms of my own work and the ideals that I would like to encourage in my students, I value authenticity and honesty even over originality.  Art is not merely an endless pursuit of trying to do something that has never been done before, but an attempt to articulate something genuine and meaningful in an intuitive way.  I am working to be more honest and authentic in my own work by trusting my instincts and making work I really care about.

Narrative

Narrative and/or story in art is an idea that just keeps coming up.  Our text approaches it in a very literal sense, but upon deeper investigation we see that this theme is huge, branching out to touch concepts like identity, memory, empathy, synthesis, pivotal moments, point of view, sensory experience, subjectivity, and so forth.  According to Daniel Pink and other cognitive scientists whom he relies upon in his writings, story, or the narrative form, is actually how we think.  It's how we organize our memories, our experiences, and our predictions for the future.  In my view, art and artifacts of visual culture can scarcely be made that do not create or belong to a story.

It's these more nuanced aspects of story that interest me more than the literal depiction of events in a linear series.  For example, what about cultivating the ability in our students to create liminal space in an image (*ping Kathy), by choosing a particularly pivotal, saturated, or climactic moment (*ping Tiger Team 2) which urges the viewer to fill in the rest of the narrative?  The ability to evoke images in the mind of the viewer pertaining to the events likely to have immediately preceded or follow the incident which is actually being portrayed requires an extremely elevated and sophisticated process of cognition and artistic decision making which I like to call illustrative ability or intelligence.  One artist who comes to mind as a notable example of this talent is Bill Watterson, author of the beloved Calvin and Hobbes comics.  Just look at any of his book covers and you'll see what I mean.  I bring this up only because I was a little disappointed with the very literal examples of narrative provided in our text.  I feel like every time the subject of narrative comes up in an art history book, we yet again have to look at The Tribute Money. This may just be a personal preference, but I feel like I've seen this painting sooo many times, and there are so many other great example out there of ways that story has shaped and impacted the arts.

Globalization

Globalization is a broad concept referring generally to a reduction in national and geographical boundaries as a result of technological advances and sociopolitical and economic shifts.  These sweeping changes in our sociological experience have, needless to say, impacted the arts in ways both discreet and blatantly apparent.  Like postmodern thought, Globalization is about transcending boundaries, appropriating new ideas and symbol systems, and embracing diverse points of view and solutions to creative problems.

In the last few decades especially, technology has made contact with virtually every corner of the globe possible.  It has enabled ideas and media to be shared with such fluency that it's impossible to deny the influence of other cultures on our lives.  We are unavoidably affected by multiple points of view, and furthermore, by the realization that there are many points of view to be considered.  This, of course, is simultaneously subtle and monumental in shaping the contemporary human experience, not to mention our philosophies on art and education.  (For instance, the relatively progressive idea that there may be more than one right answer to any given problem.)  Last, but not least, Globalization has opened up our world so that the visual vocabulary of the entire planet is now at our disposal.  It's a very exciting time to be an artist.

An Article in Support of Visual Culture Studies

The article I chose to refute Michelle Marder Khami's position is this one http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/13/nyregion/for-poorer-students-an-attempt-to-let-new-experiences-guide-learning.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 published in the New York Times in February of 2012.  The connection may not be immediately apparent, but I feel like the approach taken by the teacher and administration featured in this article toward language arts and literacy stems from a very similar philosophical ideology to that which produced and advocates visual culture studies.  Also, I just really wanted to share these cool ideas with y'all!

25 More Ideas and Beyond

Wilderness/being feral, in contrast with domestication (there's an interesting ongoing study about the domestication of foxes that I am just fascinated by. Anthropologically, it informs the process of our own "domestication" as human beings, and how and why that may have happened so rapidly in our evolution. Science and Art. Always an awesome combo)
Anger
Control
Evolution
Biological Imperative/Survival
Embellishment
Conversation
Folklore
Attachment
Ambition
Frailty/Fragility
Darkness/the unknown/Fear
Voyeurism
Altruism/philanthropy/cooperation
Effigy/Memorialization
Living in the past
Endurance
Honor/Pride
Infinity
Impossibility
Magic
Human Contact
Persuasion
Homogenization
Gaia
Avatar
'Aliveness'(the ineffable quality of life, the spark, the essence, animating the inanimate, giving life to, creation)
Icon/idol
The body as temple

Conceptual Art

Conceptual art represents a gradual paradigm shift in attitudes regarding the function, value, and role of art and artists.  Conceptualism places ideas which the artist wishes to communicate over the value of the art object itself. 

As arts educators in the 21st century, the notion of concept in art is integral to meaningful art making and educative experiences.  In my own art making, I often struggle with which ought to come first, the meaningful idea and the best laid plans that follow, or if it is better to create intuitively and allow the meaning therein to emerge in the process.  Perhaps the best approach is a synergistic relationship between the two.  However, to me, concept is tantamount to content.  The work contains nothing and has little to no artistic value without the ability to communicate concepts.  Concepts can be as simple and specific as the careful tenderness of deep and committed observation, or as sweeping and obtuse as mortality or identity.  Either way, art must contain thinking and communicate ideas in order to have value.

Series

The segment on series defines the idea as "a group of works...[in which] each work has its own identity while being explicitly linked to other works by the same artist, usually produced around the same time".  What unifies the body of work is conceptual, and often narrative in nature.  While each individual work might be capable of standing on its own, "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts".  Through a series, the artist can present relationships that exist between individual pieces, allowing a connective concept to emerge that subsumes the content of any one piece on its own.

Working in a series might allow me to approach the same subject again and again, pushing me to ask myself, What more can I say about this?  Perhaps a series might be employed to investigate and illustrate transformation of subject, or even the artist and/or viewer.  Through series, we might have the ability to focus the viewers attention on repeated elements or analogous situations, prioritizing specific aspects of the work and therefore changing or diversifying the range of possible meanings.

25 Ideas

Right of Passage
Capturing/Collecting
Holding on/Letting go
Ownership/possession
Motherhood (or lack there-of)
Domestication
Obcession
Spirituality
Covering up (that which isn't good enough on its own)
Legacy
The intersection of organic and mechanical
Opulence/excess
Entitlement
*Despairity
Wisdom vs. Prophecy
Idealization/Romanticization
*Ritual and Worship
*Sarcasm
Re-presenting and Transformation(the maker's mark)
*Facade
*Persona (Constructed identity)
Nesting
Security
Integrity
*Loss

*=inspired by the provided list

Responding to Kamhi and Gude on Visual Culture Studies and Postmodern "New School" Art Education

Michelle Marder Kamhi's article "Rescuing Art from 'Visual Culture Studies'" certainly warrants a response so thorough and impassioned that a mere 500 words or less could not possibly suffice, so I suspect that Wednesday's discussion will be vividly rich and engaging.  For now, let me begin by saying that I find Kamhi's point of view on this subject to be based on so many false assumptions and groundless opinions that I hardly know where to begin.

Kamhi asserts that the study of postmodernism and visual culture have no place in arts education, even going so far as to label their consideration as "dubious" and "insidious", citing the movement's "blatant disregard of the essential differences between works of visual art and other types of cultural artifacts" as her primary objection.  To begin with, it is my view that the study of visual culture does not place disproportionate value on or displace one type of artifact for another.  Rather, we consider the relationship between artifacts that are widely considered "fine arts" and other manifestations of visual culture, highlighting how artists "throughout time and across cultures" have chosen to investigate reoccurring themes, questions, and problems.

She begins by deriding the dangers of a "decoding" focus methodology, asserting with no basis that I can discern, that experiencing "'natural', or depictive and expressive subject matter" does not rely on the decoding process, when, in fact, deciphering and processing any form of  visual imagery does rely on a decoding process, though it may be more subtle and subconscious, as my experiences with VTS will attest.  When we are consciously prompted to ponder why we read a certain expression or seemingly "obvious" depiction in a certain way, we realize that complex processes of decoding are going on at all levels of viewing.  These flawed assumptions about the cognitive process are significant because Kamhi argues that visual culture studies preoccupation with decoding places too much emphasis on "politicized issues that divide society, [such as race, class, gender, and ethnicity], rather than on shared human values and concerns".  She places a higher degree of value on work which she, most subjectively I might add, deems inherently readable and intuitively interpretable. What's even more troubling is that she seems to labor under the delusion that there was some enchanted time in the past in which politicized issues such as those mentioned above were not of great and universal concern and were not explored or discussed through the visual arts.

In an attempt to emphasize her point, she describes Ernesta by Cecilia Beaux, a 19th century painting of a "small child grasping the sturdy hand of a nursemaid".  She laments the accompanying museum text which calls into focus the marginalization of nannies in the cultural conditions of that time and neglects to focus the discussion on nurturing, security, and  the innocent dependence of children, which she deems more implicit, universal themes.  My initial response to this example is that we want students to look deeper and consider subtexts of a work that may be present just beneath the surface.  Certainly, any uneducated viewer could glance at the painting and apprehend the emotive qualities described by the author, but when the educated viewer considers the cultural context provided by the museum resources, we see that there are multiple layers of interpretation and meaning to be extracted.  By creating a palpable sense of a nurturing, loving bond, and trust between the nanny and child subject, we are that much more emotionally compelled when we consider the plight of the nanny, a paid employee, having no natural rights to the future of this precious child that she has invested so much of herself in.  It seems that Kamhi would advise us not to push beyond our initial surface reading and concern ourselves only with what is immediately apparent on the canvas.  The application of this ideology, from an educational standpoint, is utterly lost on me, especially if we mean to use art as a tool for deeper thinking and ongoing investigation of subjects that go far beyond the formal borders of art itself.

Gude's ideas in “New School Art Styles”on the other hand, reflect a distinct valuation of art activities that support inquiry and investigation which can transfer across subject boundaries and outside of the school environment as skills and knowledge with broad application. She states, “quality art projects ought to enable students to reframe experiences, thus supporting students in individually and collaboratively finding out something new about a subject. Such new insights cannot be summarized in simple language, but instead become vivid constellations that remain in the consciousness of the artist and the viewers. Good art – and good art projects – transform the way in which we understand and process life experiences.
Artists, both historical and contemporary, explore universal themes of human experience through the lens of their own contemporary encounters and cultural assumptions, struggles, foibles, and transformations.  Post modern artists are working with the themes of race, gender, consumerism, environmentalism, social media, persuasion, etc., not instead of "themes of great and universal importance", but because those are the "themes that are of great and universal importance" to people in society now.  These issues are inextricably bound up with traditional, universal themes such as the horrors of war, identity, and honor which Kamhi deems worthy of study.  How can you separate the horrors of war from ideas about power and, quite often, distinctions of race and religion, as they are and have been so often used to incite fear, outrage, and dehumanization of the other?  How can we separate gender from themes of identity and class from pride, struggle, and honor?  How can we separate environmentalism and consumerism from the universal and timeless experiences of empathy, awe, and love of nature and mankind?  We examine the relationship between these universal themes and their manifestations in our own experiences and the culture in which we live.  This is as true in "traditional", historical art as it is today.  What endures, perhaps, are the universal themes, even after the specific context of a work may become lost on us or obsolete, but contemporary contexts are the medium through which we express ideas about the human condition.  Kamhi displays a grossly oversimplified understanding of historical art by asserting otherwise.

In light of Kamhi's attitude toward postmodernism, it seems appropriate to ask, does not rock and roll have as much to teach us about the power of music as Mozart?  Does it not express the collective experience of an entire generation alienated from its fore-bearers by rapid and sweeping sociological change?  Is this not a theme worthy of investigation? Apparently not.

Kamhi's own definitions of art and her description of the creative process only serve to undermine her point of view entirely.  She states "an artwork is long term and metaphysical in it's focus.  It reflects what the artist regards as important in human life or in his conception of the divine or supernatural realm.  In some measure, every artist is engaged, albeit most often subconsciously, with such questions as, What aspects of human experience do I regard as important?  What is worth remembering?  What do I value or abhor?  Finally, during the creative process, an artist is concerned first and foremost with getting the work right in his own judgement.  Though he may refer to such things as aiming to please God or the gods the work is nonetheless governed by his own conception of what will best achieve that end.  At every stage of the work the implicit question is, Does this 'say' what I think it should?"  All of this being true, she seems oblivious to the fact that pop culture is what's important to people today.  And if an artist wishes their work, concerned with and influenced by pop culture, to "say what [they] think it should", should they not use the materials and visual elements of that culture?  (i.e.  if a work or series of work is about consumerism or mass production, doesn't artwork that employs ready-made objects or is highly reproducible seem appropriate?)

She goes on to discuss the discrediting relationship between commercial artists and clients, completely ignoring the historical precedent of patronage and commission which dominated artist's choice of subject matter, medium, and acceptable modes of expression for the overwhelming majority of human history.  Michelangelo didn't paint the Sistine Chapel for fun, or even for an inspired sense of religious passion.  He was paid to paint the religious themes and iconography that his patrons, the church, demanded.  In fact, their ideas about artistic license were often at odds.  Modernism and postmodernism are, in fact, exercises in the new found liberty of artists to create authentic work of their own volition for the first time in most of recorded history.  Furthermore, rather hypocritically, she continues to cite personal engagement on the part of the artist as a qualifier for educationally valuable art, but does not seem to wholly acknowledge the very impersonal relationship many historical masters had to their works.  One obvious example which comes to mind is the art of portraiture, a very businesslike arrangement in which skilled artisan depicts patron according to his or her specific wishes.  She admits that many famous artists produced works like these, but holds that they lack the compelling qualities of works which were clearly the result of great personal investment.  While this may be true, I think we would still regard the less passionate or charming examples of any renown artist's work, as, in fact, still being qualifiable as art and potentially worthy of study.

The inconsistancies, inaccuracies, and false assumptions contained within this article are almost too overwhelming for me to tackle. Embracing Kamhi's philosophy would essentially mean ignoring the entirety of the 20^th century. Should we let our students proceed in ignorance of these artistic movements and their implications within our culture, even if we are not personally moved by the work?

Kamhi's essay leaves the reader with a sense of moving backward, rather than looking to the future. She seems uncomfortable with the uncertainty and ambiguity we discussed in last week's class that inevitably comes with giving students creative freedom and going into uncharted territory. As Gude states, “Asserting that students must recapitulate the history of art in their studies before understanding and making contemporary art is as discreditable as believing that students must learn outmoded conceptions of biology or physics before being introduced to the range of widely accepted contemporary theories”.

Creating postmodern curriculum which successfully embraces the past involves getting at the heart of the underlying concerns and artistic questions that drove artists to develop new techniques and forge new paths, and finding new and original ways to continue that investigation as it is relevant to present individual and collective experience. Doing so requires that we understand as deeply as possible the motivations and methodologies employed by artists and that we build our curriculum around those concepts, rather than the surface appearance of the final product.