insite
: : kevan nitzberg
the
reconfiguration of art education
Sandy
Skoglund, installation artist, presented at the NAEA Conference in NYC at the
Hilton Hotel. http://www.artsednet.getty.edu/ArtsEdNet/Images/Skoglund/radioactive.html
At the National
Art Education Association Conference in New York City in March, there emerged
movements in art education that pose some interesting questions for art educators,
as we move into the next century. At the top of the list of those movements is
the question regarding whether art will continue to remain primarily a studio
type of educational activity, or whether it is evolving (or de-evolving), into
something all together different - a crash course in visual education that takes
a much broader look at art in terms of its place in relation to any number of
social issues that impact and are impacted by our increasingly visual culture.
One of the notable
speakers at the Conference that I had the opportunity to listen to, was Dr. Elliot
Eisner, Professor of Art Education. http://www.bsu.edu/classes/bauer/hpmused/eisner/eisner.htmleduc.sfu.ca/people/faculty/kegan/Eisner.htm
In Dr. Eisner's
presentation, a number of concerns were voiced regarding losing the actual experience
of working with visual images. To paraphrase his statements, he said that working
with the materials necessary to the creating of artwork was an enrichment of human
experience and that the uniqueness of that type of learning is becoming increasingly
important as we move towards living in a culture that is making everything look
the same. He reiterated the importance of advocating the arts in terms of their
intrinsic value as opposed to giving them instrumental value as a result of what
else they can do. He also emphasized that both art and art education need to be
supported.
That
emphasis on both the 'form and function' of art might be evidenced in Russell
Wright's1935 "Coffee Urn", integrating visual culture without losing the study
of art in the process. http://www.culturefinder.com/calendar/event?id=109750&date_id=1404010
In addition,
Dr. Eisner pointed out that the teaching about art is more than just the teaching
of art - ultimately we need to be concerned with students' overall development
(the drinking of coffee as a societal convention suggested here notwithstanding).
In his concluding comments, Eisner stated that the needs of the students must
be central to all of education's efforts and that the arts must support a lifelong
memory of the experiences that were had in the classroom irrespective or what
standardized tests such as the SATs record. He also suggested that the arts could
serve as the core for all education, making the rest of the curriculum look more
like art and not the other way around.
Not
presenting at the NAEA Conference in NYC, but a speaker in the area of educational
technology, is Dr. Jason Ohler from the University of Alaska Southeast. http://www2.jun.alaska.edu/edtech/jason/
He has been promoting the establishment of art as the 4th area of literacy
in the educational curriculum. http://www2.jun.alaska.edu/edtech/fourthr/
In an article published in the October issue of Educational Leadership, Dr. Ohler
stated that as we move ever further into the digital age, it becomes increasingly
important for students to be able to navigate through and be proficient in the
use of multimedia tools that are needed more and more in the workplace. Students
today must, in fact, be able to think and communicate as artists if they are to
be successful. That presents an awesome task to the schools as the entire educational
paradigm really needs to be examined to accommodate all of the additional instruction
methodologies and courses that students will need to be exposed to. While the
influx of the multimedia technology will be helpful for those in the population
who might be considered to be 'artistically challenged', there is still the necessity
of finding the wherewithal to fund and house the technology that will be needed.
Dr. Ohler does pursue the idea that art does have those additional uses that Elliot
Eisner cautioned about over-emphasizing, as he notes that the study of the arts
in school is important to the developing of an understanding and an opportunity
to experience the diversity and commonality of humanity, along with a series of
other growth experiences.
As
we move towards creating more of an inclusive art educated population, there are
additional issues dealing with cultural and racial belief systems and life experiences
that need to also be considered as critical to truly honoring the diversity piece
that Dr. Ohler alludes to. Two workshops presented at the NAEA Conference that
I had the opportunity to attend dealt with topics that had precisely those concerns.
The first was a workshop entitled, "Navajo Art: A Way of Life", given by Dr. Faith
Clover, instructor at the University of Minnesota and also contributor to artsednet.
http://www.artsednet.getty.edu/ArtsEdNet/Resources/Navajo/index.html
The
workshop discussed, among other things, the commercialization of many of the artifacts
and images that are created for use in Navajo and other Native American rituals
and religious ceremonies. The misuse of these things, such as sacred sand paintings
and eagle feathers, does little to value the cultural beliefs of these people,
and certainly does not honor the purpose behind the creation and use of the artwork
being made. In a way, this alludes to the cautionary note interjected by Elliot
Eisner in his presentation, where he warns about our moving towards creating a
society where everything tends toward becoming the same. Certainly neither the
artwork nor a substantial number of the other icons attributed to many of the
traditional Native American peoples, present a good fit into that mode of thinking.
The second workshop
that I attended dealing with art created within a specific culture, was one on
African American Outsider Art, presented by Kimberly Turner, an art instructor
in the Richmond, VA School system. This culturally specific expression of art
also has found growing commercial success. The artists in this group are typically
self taught, work in rather isolated environments, generally create their art
for personal enjoyment and use inexpensive materials that happen to be easily
accessible. Artists such as Mose Tolliver, Clementine Hunter, Faith Ringgold ,
and Bessie Harvey create 2 and 3 dimensional works of art that are almost autobiographical
statements reflecting their lives and cultures and are very much outside the mainstream
of artistic expression. Here also is a valuable addition to the idea of the importance
of maintaining the integrity of the diversity of experience that is so intrinsic
in the creative process. http://www.marciaweberartobjects.com/tolliverm.html
http://www.sunsite.utk.edu/bessie/tour1/bio1.html
Sandy Skoglund,
whose work was referenced at the beginning of this article, in her presentation
at the Conference, stated that she equates her own art with the meaning of life
itself, and that everything around us is important in it own right. As the technology
that is available to us also is constantly changing, the variety of means of expression
that we have access to is forever in a state of flux. Those forms of art that
we traditionally held fast to, are being added to daily, causing a major shift
in how art is being defined and categorized. That incredible range of processes
and materials that we now have at our disposable are certainly a major component
in how Sandy Skoglund goes about creating her artwork and redefining the commonplace
into an almost infinite exploration of what the Surrealists often referred to
as the 'marvelous'.
Images
of what the "Brave New World' was thought to be like have been as complex and
far apart from each other as Aldous Huxley's frightening portrayal of Big Brother
to Robert McCall's outer space canvases, including those he created for Stanley
Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" http://www.spacefoundation.org/symposium99/the_art_of_mccall.html
The reality of
what the future actually will be like and how the next generation of art students
are trained to perceive and record what those images look like, certainly must
involve a wider variety of issues than those being presented here. It is important
to note, though, that many of these discussions are, in fact, taking place and
being given serious attention by art educators, trying to both embrace the complexities
of what will define the parameters of artistic expression and the role of art
in society, while holding onto the values that have traditionally made the experience
of creating visual art a uniquely human endeavor that holds up a mirror to a side
of us not always so easily perceived.
Kevan
Nitzberg is an art educationalist and Minnesota Educator of the Year, 2000. To
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