What is Art in Education? New Narratives of Learning

Abstract

In this paper I address some questions pertinent to the development of school art education. I begin by considering how we relate to art and how we might understand the notion of this relation in terms of human subjectivity and the art object. To do this I describe particular art practices that have broadened social conceptions of art, which in turn, become part of art itself and shape performances of understanding, learning and practice. Implicit to this discussion is a change in how artists, art practice and engagement with art are conceived. I then consider some art events in school art education and analyse how human subjects, art practices and objects are understood in this context. This leads to further remarks about how learners and practice in school art education might be discerned in the light of the preceding discussion. Art Performance, Identification and the ObjectIn the fields of art criticism, cultural theory and art history humanist relations between the artist, the artwork and the spectator have been challenged for many years. That is to say, there has been challenge to the idea that the artist's intentions or feelings may be manifested in the art object and available thereby to spectators. Such interrogation problematises the idea that such intentions, expressions or feelings can be found in the artwork, as long as we have sufficient knowledge of the artist and the context of production. In the humanist tradition Richard Wollheim's (1987) analytical and psychological approach to interpreting artwork is a well known example where for the spectator the art experience is seen to be, 'the effect of the intentional activity on the part of the artist,' (Pollock, 1995, p. 39). The artist is therefore seen as the source of meaning and the cause of art. The art object is a sign, a trace of the artist's subjectivity. Interpretation relies upon an assumed universal human nature that is expressed in and through the artwork and which can be perceived by the spectator. Griselda Pollock (1995, p. 39) argues persuasively against this hermeneutic method insisting that it assumes the relations between artist, object and spectator are ahistorical, that the viewer is posited as a disembodied spectator and that this fails to consider, for example, issues of class, race and gender which might affect and challenge the proposed symmetry of the relationship.

Inclusion and intersectionality in visual arts education

“…Pedagogical difference is emphasised in chapter 5 by Melanie Davies who reflects on the experiences of dyslexic students, whom she argues are a majority in art and design courses. Drawing on critical disability studies, Davies highlights the discursive construction of dyslexia: disability as social construction in relation to pedagogised identities (Atkinson 2007). Furthermore building on the potential for art education as inclusive practice, chapter 6, investigates a workshop titled: thinking through drawing, which engages with drawing as a communication method in addition to writing.…”