artlistpro: arthistoryblog: I was recently blogging with Mark P. Venema @Art_News on his blog http://bit.ly/9k7Kl8 regarding teaching art, and this is what I had to say: If I was an Art teacher I would school my students in history, theory and philosophy because in my opinion, that’s what an artist should know inside and out. I grow tired of going to art galleries in Los Angeles and not being able to have a single conversation with any young artist because they don’t know their stuff. Most artists in LA seem to just want to put out super clean commercial art that would be sold at Urban Outfitters or some other trendy store. Some might be more original looking than others, but they clearly stuck in a Neo-Pop world that’s cornered them. We forget that artists in the past schooled themselves by making trips to Italy, France and Spain to absorb everything they could get their hands on. Young artists today often think they’re so cool and above it somehow…for me it’s getting old. So, if I was a teacher my attempt would be to build ‘em up and then tear ‘em down in this fashion. 1) School them in the history of Art with reading and weekly chapter review with a heavy emphasis on Renaissance through Post Modern. I wouldn’t be concerned if they like it or not because they need to know their trade and by the end they will rethink their entire approach to art guaranteed. 2) Philosophy: Certain interpretations of Søren Kierkegaard, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Nietzsche are important precursors to postmodernism. With their emphasis on skepticism, especially concerning objective reality, social morals, and societal norms, all three philosophers, for the postmodernists, represent a reaction to modernism ending in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. 3) Introduce them to the theories of Clement Greenberg and his views on Abstract Expressionism. Oh also, school them on the Dada Manifesto-make them read it and a solid introduction to André Breton. 4) Next introduce them to Arthur Dow’s art education book (1st published 1899) “Composition” which introduces Buddhist/ Japanese concepts into the creation process. This is what jump started Georgia O’Keeffe after she left painting from 1908-1912. (I did my thesis on this) The Japanese had many concepts of nature and how to see the world that students should immerse themselves in, or at least know about. 5) The goal: After they get a full art education/philosophy and study Eastern art education methods, they will possible come to the conclusion, the same conclusion that Clemet Greenberg, Jackson Pollock and Joseph Beuys came to: We cannot separate ourselves from history. And if they think they’re an island and can work outside of this knowledge, someone like me will remind them to go back to school and learn their trade. More on Postmodernism (that I think any artist should be familiar with) can be found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernist Art and literature of the early part of the 20th century play a significant part in shaping the character of postmodern culture. Dadaism attacked notions of high art in an attempt to break down the distinctions between high and low culture; Surrealism further developed concepts of Dadaism to celebrate the flow of the subconscious with influential techniques such as automatism and nonsensical juxtapositions (evidence of Surrealism’s influence on postmodern thought can be seen in Foucault’s and Derrida’s references to Rene Magritte’s experiments with signification). Some other significant contributions to postmodern culture from literary figures include the following: Jorge Luis Borges experimented in metafiction and magical realism; William S. Burroughs wrote the prototypical postmodern novel Naked Lunch and developed the cut up method (similar to Tristan Tzara’s “How to Make a Dadaist Poem”) to create other novels such as Nova Express; Samuel Beckett attempted to escape the shadow of James Joyce by focusing on the failure of language and humanity’s inability to overcome its condition, themes later to be explored in such works as Waiting for Godot. The anti-foundationalist philosophers, Heidegger, then Derrida, examined the fundamentals of knowledge; they argued that rationality was neither as sure nor as clear as modernists or rationalists assert. It is possible to identify the burgeoning anti-establishment movements of the 1960s as the constituting event of postmodernism. The theory gained some of its strongest ground early on in French academia. In 1971, the Arab-American theorist Ihab Hassan was one of the first to use the term in its present form (though it had been used by many others before him, Charles Olson for example, to refer to other literary trends) in his book: The Dismemberment of Orpheus: Toward a Postmodern Literature; in it, Hassan traces the development of what he called “literature of silence” through Marquis de Sade, Franz Kafka, Ernest Hemingway, Beckett, and many others, including developments such as the Theatre of the Absurd and the nouveau roman. In 1979 Jean-François Lyotard wrote a short but influential work The Postmodern Condition: A report on knowledge. Richard Rorty wrote Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979). Jean Baudrillard, Michel Foucault, and Roland Barthes are also influential in 1970s postmodern theory. - Sharon Fitzgerald, MA

artlistpro:

arthistoryblog:

I was recently blogging with Mark P. Venema @Art_News on his blog http://bit.ly/9k7Kl8 regarding teaching art, and this is what I had to say:

If I was an Art teacher I would school my students in history, theory and philosophy because in my opinion, that’s what an artist should know inside and out. I grow tired of going to art galleries in Los Angeles and not being able to have a single conversation with any young artist because they don’t know their stuff. Most artists in LA seem to just want to put out super clean commercial art that would be sold at Urban Outfitters or some other trendy store. Some might be more original looking than others, but they clearly stuck in a Neo-Pop world that’s cornered them. We forget that artists in the past schooled themselves by making trips to Italy, France and Spain to absorb everything they could get their hands on. Young artists today often think they’re so cool and above it somehow…for me it’s getting old.

So, if I was a teacher my attempt would be to build ‘em up and then tear ‘em down in this fashion.

1) School them in the history of Art with reading and weekly chapter review with a heavy emphasis on Renaissance through Post Modern. I wouldn’t be concerned if they like it or not because they need to know their trade and by the end they will rethink their entire approach to art guaranteed.

2) Philosophy: Certain interpretations of Søren Kierkegaard, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Nietzsche are important precursors to postmodernism. With their emphasis on skepticism, especially concerning objective reality, social morals, and societal norms, all three philosophers, for the postmodernists, represent a reaction to modernism ending in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.

3) Introduce them to the theories of Clement Greenberg and his views on Abstract Expressionism. Oh also, school them on the Dada Manifesto-make them read it and a solid introduction to André Breton.

4) Next introduce them to Arthur Dow’s art education book (1st published 1899) “Composition” which introduces Buddhist/ Japanese concepts into the creation process. This is what jump started Georgia O’Keeffe after she left painting from 1908-1912. (I did my thesis on this) The Japanese had many concepts of nature and how to see the world that students should immerse themselves in, or at least know about.

5) The goal: After they get a full art education/philosophy and study Eastern art education methods, they will possible come to the conclusion, the same conclusion that Clemet Greenberg, Jackson Pollock and Joseph Beuys came to: We cannot separate ourselves from history. And if they think they’re an island and can work outside of this knowledge, someone like me will remind them to go back to school and learn their trade.


More on Postmodernism (that I think any artist should be familiar with) can be found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernist

Art and literature of the early part of the 20th century play a significant part in shaping the character of postmodern culture. Dadaism attacked notions of high art in an attempt to break down the distinctions between high and low culture; Surrealism further developed concepts of Dadaism to celebrate the flow of the subconscious with influential techniques such as automatism and nonsensical juxtapositions (evidence of Surrealism’s influence on postmodern thought can be seen in Foucault’s and Derrida’s references to Rene Magritte’s experiments with signification).

Some other significant contributions to postmodern culture from literary figures include the following: Jorge Luis Borges experimented in metafiction and magical realism; William S. Burroughs wrote the prototypical postmodern novel Naked Lunch and developed the cut up method (similar to Tristan Tzara’s “How to Make a Dadaist Poem”) to create other novels such as Nova Express; Samuel Beckett attempted to escape the shadow of James Joyce by focusing on the failure of language and humanity’s inability to overcome its condition, themes later to be explored in such works as Waiting for Godot.
The anti-foundationalist philosophers, Heidegger, then Derrida, examined the fundamentals of knowledge; they argued that rationality was neither as sure nor as clear as modernists or rationalists assert.

It is possible to identify the burgeoning anti-establishment movements of the 1960s as the constituting event of postmodernism. The theory gained some of its strongest ground early on in French academia. In 1971, the Arab-American theorist Ihab Hassan was one of the first to use the term in its present form (though it had been used by many others before him, Charles Olson for example, to refer to other literary trends) in his book: The Dismemberment of Orpheus: Toward a Postmodern Literature; in it, Hassan traces the development of what he called “literature of silence” through Marquis de Sade, Franz Kafka, Ernest Hemingway, Beckett, and many others, including developments such as the Theatre of the Absurd and the nouveau roman. In 1979 Jean-François Lyotard wrote a short but influential work The Postmodern Condition: A report on knowledge. Richard Rorty wrote Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979). Jean Baudrillard, Michel Foucault, and Roland Barthes are also influential in 1970s postmodern theory.

- Sharon Fitzgerald, MA

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