Mid-terms are over for another semester and I just finished a round of grading essays (something that I actually enjoy doing). As usual, they run the gamut from outstanding and humorous to the lackluster….
I teach the history of art and visual culture, which I often describe as learning about history and ideas in pictures. At the beginning of the semester, I passed out a series of 10 short questions to gauge the existing knowledge level of my students whom I knew had never taken any kind of art history before. The most important question for me was the last: ‘This class is an elective. Why did you choose it over the other options available to you?’ My primary goal in asking this was to uncover the reasoning behind their choice so that I could develop strategies for delivering the content of the course in ways that would potentially be more meaningful to this group of students.
As I suspected, many selected this class because it fit into their schedule, or they thought the content sounded somewhat interesting. However, I also received a response that made me excited – “I’m taking this class because when I go into museums or galleries I always see people spending lots of time looking at things and I always wonder what it is they’re looking at.” In essence, this student’s motivation for enrolling in the course was to increase his visual literacy by learning how to decode and read images.
The kinds of survey courses I teach have traditionally been structured upon rote memorization and the subsequent regurgitation of specific pieces of information. Yes, there are fundamental learning objectives that need to be achieved; however, I also want my students to develop their own visually critical toolboxes, which to me entails having them apply the knowledge that they’ve learned to new and unfamiliar situations (or in this particular case – works of art or visual culture). What this ability to apply knowledge demonstrates is a grasping of the broad, underlying concepts that influence or shape the way an object appears. The idea is that the skills they develop will (hopefully) transfer to real-life encounters beyond the pages of a textbook and the walls of the classroom.
As those who have taken any course of any kind can attest, one of the biggest drawbacks to a survey class is its breadth that comes at the sacrifice of depth. Most works are only covered in a superficial manner, which can make developing that critical toolbox tricky. In addition, keeping students engaged for a three hour long night class (as I have been charged with doing) is its own special kind of challenge.
Yet the in-class discussions and the compare and contrasts we’ve been doing appear to be paying off in terms of increasing visual literacy. So much so, that the “never seen before” sculpture included in the mid-term was one of the best answered questions on the exam. Just like all the other slide identifications, they had to name the work, sculptor and producing culture. The difference was that they had to provide evidence that supported their answer.
“Man Watering High Flower Pots” – Praxiteles
To me, reading their answers was exhilarating. (Yes, I realize how much that might make it sound like I need more excitement in my life – which is not true – I think it just makes me a hard-core educator at heart!) I suspect that part of the reason for the success on this question has to do with what the students had to do when presented with an unfamiliar image. They had to look. Instead of briefly glancing at the image to see what it was before turning back to the page, heads down, while trying to recall all the minutiae of whatever work was on the screen, they actually had to look at the work they were writing about and think about it in an active way. Fueled by the mini chocolate bars passed out before the exams, they had to think about what other works had they seen before which were similar or different, and how? Which aspects of the work offered clues as to which culture produced it, and why?
Across the board, their analyses of the work illustrated that they have begun internalizing the grand narratives set out in the course. As someone passionate about the ways viewers create meaning when engaging with visual culture, especially those inexperienced in the language of visual culture, this is a major coup. My next hope is that since their exams are non-cumulative, they retain at least some of the content they learned in the first half of the semester…
Wow. I can’t believe how fast October is flying by. Fall has been just perfect this year and there are so many great things happening that are worth doing and sharing. But first I’m going to follow in the footsteps of my predecessor and introduce both myself as well as my good intentions for the next six months….
My name is Megan Bertagnolli and the short biography about me on the Writer in Residence page states that I am a writer, but I consider myself to be much more of an educator. What I enjoy is connecting people to new ideas in ways that are both engaging and meaningful to them. I strive to do this by creating a space for dialogue in the talks I give, the programming develop, and the curatorial projects in which I am involved. Having recently graduated with a Masters in the History of Art, Design and Visual Culture, my approach to these different roles is informed by my art historical background, rather than being rooted in art education or practice. As such, one of my principal endeavours during this residency is to engage with readings about critical museum pedagogy and practice, and to investigate how different people use and make sense of visual culture. I’m also curious about the perceptions or beliefs that circulate about what art is or what art has the capacity to be or do.
One of the reasons I’ve been so busy this month comes as a result of Alberta Eugenics Awareness Week and my participation in the Collective Memory Project: Responses to Eugenics in Alberta. Spearheaded by former Writer in Residence Anne Pasek, the entire project consisted of a series of public discussions about the history of eugenics in Canada and open studio where people had the opportunity to make art work responding to that history. This project will be punctuated by an exhibition of both historical documents and artworks that attempts to make eugenic “histories and ideologies visible.” Furthermore, it gives agency to communities and voices not often seen or heard.
The term “eugenics” comes from the Greek for “well-born.” Broadly speaking, however, eugenics encompasses the policies, practices and attitudes that both promote and discourage certain characteristics or socio-cultural groups. Examples include everything from the classification, segregation and sterilization of the “unfit” (those with disabilities, mental health issues, labeled sexually deviant, or from particular racial groups) as well as modern genetic testing, prenatal screening and the rise of designer babies. Often associated with the extreme example of Nazi Germany, Canada’s own involvement includes Residential Schools and Provincial Training Schools which sought to address “the Indian problem” and “the feeble-minded threat” respectively.
This week (October 15-23) is Alberta Eugenics Awareness Week talks, films and performances relating to this history of eugenics in Alberta. Opening on the 23rd in the Extension Gallery at Enterprise Square (10230 Jasper Ave) will be the exhibition component of the Collective Memory Project, which includes an interactive component that invites visitors to actively engage with the themes and ideas being presented by contributing their own stories and reflections to the eugenics tree. While the reception will be this Sunday from 2-4 pm, the exhibition runs until the 23rd of November.
So the torch has been passed again, leaving me with the distinct pleasure of being your Writer in Residence for the next six months. I feel in very good company indeed, following Carolyn’s excellent arts advocacy and Fish’s Gonzo journalism. I hope to build upon these contributions and also leave my own mark behind. But, before we get into any of that, it would be quite rude of me to continue without introducing myself properly.
Hi there. I’m Anne. I’d like, if I may, to have a conversation with you about art.
What does it mean to you?
What can it do?
Alternatively, how can we justify and defend what seems purely impractical and frivolous, particularly when it isn’t making you money, or nicely off-setting your couch?
I’m sure we’ve all heard that accusations before, whether levelled from a conservative uncle (or certain government administrations). Isn’t it always the case that art and its advocates are forced into the defensive before rhetorical blows are exchanged- always fighting against the ropes, as it were? Art often doesn’t even get the chance to take a stand as this discussion is more often than not precluded from ever beginning with a roll of the eye and a shrug of the shoulders. Pfft, Artists, man- They’re all… you know?
The thing is, perhaps we don’t know. What, precisely, do we call upon our artists to do? Art has alienated a lot of people over the past 150 years, to the extent that the average guy on the street avoids going to art galleries because the art inside has developed a reputation for being unfathomable rather than illuminating. Artists, producing rather opaque work and seemingly in dialogue only with each other, get decried as fools, and the entire enterprise of art making becomes a privileged space removed from the economy of the rest of society. To be an artist is to get a pass, to be able to get away with doing seemingly ridiculous things, but at the cost of never quite being a full citizen. Occupying the infantalized space of idiot savant the ‘ridiculous’ artist performing ‘ridiculous’ acts is admissible into society only in so far as we don’t have to take them seriously.
Suffice to say, I see this as a problem- a P.R. calamity, if you will.
This crisis, as I see it, arises from several loci. Our art education has not caught up with the conceptual turns of contemporary art. Just as we would struggle miserably through the novels of Borges and Falkner were it not for the guidance of our teachers, the gestures of Yves Klein, Zhang Huan, or Frank Stella can seem pretty incomprehensible if we don’t have the pillars of philosophy, visual literacy, and history to fall back on. With the exception of a few innovative art education programs such as that of the Art Gallery of Alberta, I see this education as everywhere lacking.
Secondly, a lot of artists can’t write and don’t speak up. It may seem like a particularly cruel double-standard to expect artists to be both visually and literarily coherent, but all the bad artist’s statements out there really do art a disservice. While I understand the desire to avoid over-determining a viewer’s experience with didactics, I also see a profound cowardice in shrugging one’s shoulders and absolving oneself of responsibility for the interpretation of art once it enters the public sphere. More often than not this is laziness or poor form on the part of the artist and it does everyone a disservice when a viewer walks away feeling completely frustrated or confused. Please, artists, write good statements and speak eloquently about your art, or else you perpetuate the continual infantilization of artists in the world today.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the disconnect between art and the public also emerges from our lack of a coherent answer to the questions of What is art? and What can it do? This is where I really want to focus my residency for, as impossible as it is to answer these monolithic questions, they still beg a response in the form of continual and fluid speculation. When we have some expectations for the art we see- and when we as viewers are as engaged in the search for answers as the artists producing the work before us- then not only will we see some amazing things, we’ll also have a larger, more inclusive community. And that, I believe, it to everyone’s benefit.
In the history of modern art, the driving task has been pushing the limits of what art could be. From gestural brush strokes to abstraction, from flung paint to bare canvas, and from ready-mades to the completely immaterial- in the process of interrogating the boundaries of art we have also thoroughly deconstructed the term, exposed its artifice, and opened up new parameters of sensory and conceptual experience. However, we’ve lost a lot of people along the way and our expectations for art are quite scattered. While I’m certainly not going to advocate a return to the academies, a socialist realist turn, or that everyone suddenly start painting like Norman Rockwell, I do think that it’s time to maybe, hesitantly, start reconstructing art and re-imbuing this term with some meaning and gravity.
So, the question before me in the next six months is this: What is the function of contemporary art, and just how does one go about engaging in it? This is, of course, something of a trick question, because there are no definitive answers and no end to possible solutions. But I thought, by way of introduction, I might describe a few ideas I’ve come up with so far.
In high school, art was my haven. It was a space I could go to to make things and engage in some light emotional catharsis. There’s not a teenager in the world who wouldn’t benefit from a few hours spent with some dark paint and some angry brush stokes. Art can be profoundly therapeutic.
I probably wouldn’t have done much with art if it weren’t for Joe Strummer. (He was the frontman of the English 80’s punk band The Clash, for those of you who may not fit neatly in my demographic- hell, I don’t even fit in it). I adored the audacity of his principled rejection of Thatcherist Britain and his commitment to using art to reshape his society without succumbing to the nihilism of his generation. His music became an anti-racist space that blended an increasingly global sound, documenting injustice and absurdity domestically and across the world. From him I took the inspiration that art can be a social critique and art can make its own culture.
When I went on to art school in college, art suddenly shifted from being an exploration of interiority to becoming a way of looking at the world. Spending hours staring at the figure was, in many ways, a devotional experience. I used to get pretty deep crushes on all the models because to draw them, to study them, was pretty close to loving them. Art can open your eyes. Art can be a way of knowing.
After graduating I found my way to Peru, to a small village on the boarder of the city of Cusco. I worked with a group of kids and a really cool 20 something working his way through art school. Together we made a mural of a giant world map. From this I learned that art can cross boarders and create communities. Art can be an exchange of ideas.
When I returned to school again I immersed myself in the history of art. Far more interesting than the tautologies of form or the linear narrative of modernity was, for me, the story of the historicity of objects. What did it mean to image the world in a particular kind of space? What conditions and ideals are disclosed in the representation of the body? How has art supported or condemned regimes of power? Through this study I got the sense that art can open up the conditions of history and divulge a tantalizing sense of what has been.
I later had the chance to make my way to New York to see the great works of modernism. I was fully prepared to dismiss what I saw as an insular turn away from the social responsibility of art, towards the edification of the few and the fiscal reward of those who traded in art as indiscriminately as the stock market. What I saw, instead, profoundly troubled my politics. The Jackson Pollock’s, Mark Rothko’s, and Donald Judd’s were incredibly, annoyingly beautiful. I spent many hours in front of these works, entirely at war with myself, until I grudgingly came to the conclusion that it’s quite alright for art to be purely aesthetic and emotionally affective. If you’re lucky, art just might move you to tears.
Lately, however, I’ve been approaching art from a different perspective. I’ve been reading a lot of theory and philosophy and I seem to be able to approach art through no other angle. Michel Foucault, Georges Bataille, Judith Butler and Martin Heidegger have all left their mark on my way of thinking and have fundamentally altered how I see art, and what I look to it to accomplish. Much of my writing as of late has taken the form of reading art and theory as compliments to one another and, for better or for worse, that’s what’s likely to unfold in this residency. The way I see it, art (great art, at least) can take the shape of a poetic investigation of ideas and relations with the world. Art can be a form of philosophy with its own unique resonance.
This theory stuff, however, tends to be a rather gated community. Reading a lot of these thinkers is tough work and, like art itself, it tends to get dismissed as impractical and ridiculous in its own right. (Perhaps this is why I see art and theory as such good companions). At any rate, it proves to be an obstacle to no one’s benefit and I’ve taken it upon myself to work towards democratizing some of these thinkers, and bettering the access to ideas in Edmonton’s art community. So, in the coming months, I hope to further the discussion of art and ideas while providing a primer or two on some of the most influential philosophers on contemporary art practices today.
I also hope for this discussion to take the form of a dialogue rather than a lecture. I greatly encourage you to leave your feedback in the comment section of this blog, which I will be checking in on frequently and hopefully. I also recognize that for all the convenience of the web for getting ideas out there, it can be a horrible medium for getting ideas back. My ultimate goal in this residency is not the top down dissemination of knowledge, but rather a horizontal exchange of ideas across the arts community and beyond, into the no-artist’s-land of the general public. So, to that end, I’m working on developing something of a book club/discussion circle so that we can all come together face to face, perhaps over a meal, and challenge and inspire each other. If you have any suggestions or preferences as to what form this endeavour should take I would absolutely welcome your feedback. Likewise, if any of my above rantings suggest a question or comment, it would delight me if you could share. I would love to know your take on art’s PR problem, its function, and what your history with it has been.
My name is Anne, and I would love to have a conversation with you.
