New guest blogger: Ben Street
Thanks to Rosanna Flouty of the ICA Boston for all her colorful, engaging posts. Up next is Ben Street, who teaches Art History at Westminster School in central London and is a schools and family educator at the National Gallery and the Hayward Gallery. He is a former schools and family educator at MoMA and the Guggenheim Museum, New York. Ben writes on contemporary art in London for Artnet and is a lecturer for Art History Abroad, taking students on intensive summer courses in Italy on the history of art and architecture.
Teaching with Contemporary Art: An Introduction
This is my first-ever blog post.
There…. I said it. Everyone and their Mom has a blog somewhere and I guess it was bound to happen to me, too. Blogging, I suppose, allows for a kind of rolling perspective reel. It allows for not just multiple perspectives but even overlapping ones. At least that’s what I hope. It certainly should be more than just a “report” on contemporary art education.
Teaching with Contemporary Art (the title of this column) is about the things that happen when we share Art:21 artists with our students. It’s about what happens to their approaches making art, the way they talk about art, and the ways engagement can help shape and redefine the art they create. Whether students are being introduced to Elizabeth Murray combining painting and sculpture or to Mark Dion balancing sculpture and ecology, this blog will focus on why contemporary art in the classroom is important, the kinds of things that happen when it’s part of the curriculum, and ideas for approaching contemporary art from a variety of angles.
But why bother? Why incorporate new artists in your classes when things might be going well enough? Students are producing strong work, perhaps. They “know the elements and principles.” But how well are they able to articulate their thoughts about art being made today? What kinds of skills can we give them for engaging with art beyond our classrooms after they graduate? These are some of the questions I’d like to take on as we get started….
Artwork by Nicole Bencivengo, Nyack High School, 2007.
New column: Teaching with Contemporary Art
Art21 is pleased to introduce a new column on our blog, written specifically for art educators. Teaching with Contemporary Art, written by our Senior Education Advisor, Joe Fusaro, will appear every Wednesday. Joe and a cadre of teachers and other guest bloggers will share their experiences with bringing contemporary art into the classroom and other spaces ripe for learning about today’s art and artists.
Joe Fusaro received his Masters Degree in Education from the City University of New York and his Bachelors Degree in Fine Arts from Hofstra University. He is an exhibiting artist, educator, and Visual Arts Chair for the Nyack Public Schools in New York since 2003. Prior to his work in Nyack, he was a teacher and staff developer in the New York City school system for 13 years. Fusaro is currently an adjunct assistant professor at Fordham University’s Graduate School of Education, certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, and has led staff development workshops in contemporary art education for the New York State Art Teachers Association and the National Art Education Association over the past four years. His recent exhibitions include solo shows at Kickstart Gallery in New York City and the University of California, Santa Cruz. Fusaro also exhibited in the December 2007 Postcards from the Edge group show at James Cohan Gallery, benefiting VisualAids.org, and was the summer artist-in-residence at Massachusetts College during 2005 and 2006.
Stay tuned for the first installment of Teaching with Contemporary Art tomorrow.
Tonight! An-My Lê with Michael Almereyda at NY Public Library
Art21, BOMB, & the Mid-Manhattan Library
present
a film screening and conversation
Art:21—Art in the Twenty-First Century Season 4 episode Protest
After the screening Michael Almereyda, filmmaker and writer, will join artist An-My Lê for a conversation and Q&A session.
Tonight, May 5, 2008 at 6:30pm
Mid-Manhattan Library
The New York Public Library
40th Street and 5th Avenue, 6th floor
New York, NY 10016
212-340-0871
Elevators to access the 6th floor.
All events are FREE and open to the public.
New guest blogger: Rosanna Flouty
This week and next, Rosanna Flouty, Interim Director of Education and Teen Programs Manager at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston will be our resident guest blogger. Rosanna has worked in art museums since 1993, with a special focus on technology and contemporary art. At the ICA, she oversees a three-year Wallace Foundation grant to grow teen programs, including a teen arts council and teen new media programs inspired by the permanent collection, visiting exhibitions and the architecture of the building. She actively collaborates with contemporary artists to engage young audiences. Prior to joining the ICA in Boston, she was Education Manager for New Media at the Guggenheim Museum from 2000-2006, and oversaw technology-based adult, youth, family, teacher and teen programs at the Sackler Center. Rosanna teaches grad level classes such as “Museums and Interpretive Technology” at New York University, and recently guest-lectured at Tufts University, UMASS-Boston, and Simmons College. She is passionate about charting new territory for new media art education and mentoring young professionals in the field. Currently, she is organizing a national leadership conference for museum-based teen programs to convene in summer 2009, and enjoys programming DJ events such as Experiment at the ICA.
“Art:21″ Season Four wins Peabody, Aurora, Hugo, and Remi Awards
Art21 is thrilled to announce that Season 4 of Art:21—Art in the Twenty-First Century has won three more awards in addition to the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award bestowed earlier this month, making this our most honored season to date:
- Platinum Best in Show from the Aurora Awards
- Gold Remi from the 41st WorldFest Independent Film Festival
- Silver Hugo from the 44th Hugo Television Awards
We extend our warmest congratulations to all of the extraordinary individuals and organizations who have contributed to making Art:21 such a phenomenal and continuing success!
Download the press release with full details here.
…And we’re back!
We switched servers last week and lost a few posts, but it looks as though we recovered them all now. Working out the kinks with the characters now; they should be fixed soon. In the meantime, keep reading…
New guest blogger: Maria Nicanor of the Guggenheim Museum, NYC
This week and next, Maria Nicanor, a Spanish curator and writer based in New York City, will be our resident guest blogger. Maria has a background in art history and museum studies and is currently a curatorial assistant at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. At the Guggenheim, she has worked on the development of Spanish painting from El Greco to Picasso and is currently working on a Cy Twombly retrospective and several other exhibition projects for the Guggenheim Museums in Bilbao and New York . As a student, she worked for the Museum of Modern Art’s International Program department and for the photography department of the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University. She also taught contemporary architecture and design classes at the Autonoma University of Madrid. Maria writes for the contemporary arts magazine Exit Express and is the US representative for the annual video art festival LOOP-Barcelona. She is currently working on independent exhibition projects in New York City and enjoys promoting young emerging artists and developing collaborative and interdisciplinary cultural projects.
Reminder: Charles Atlas with Lia Gangitano at NYPL tonight
Art21, BOMB, & the Mid-Manhattan Library
present
a film screening and conversation
Art:21—Art in the Twenty-First Century Season 4 episode Paradox
After the screening Lia Gangitano, Director of Participant Inc., will join consulting director and video artist Charles Atlas for a conversation and Q&A session.
TONIGHT Monday, April 7, 2008 at 6:30pm
Mid-Manhattan Library
The New York Public Library
40th Street and 5th Avenue, 6th floor
New York, NY 10016
212-340-0871
Elevators to access the 6th floor.
All events are FREE and open to the public.
New blog column: Berliner Salon with Emilie Trice
Art21 is pleased to welcome our newest writer, Emilie Trice, to the site. Emilie, who is based in Berlin, will be covering the local art scene in her blog column, Berliner Salon. Her first post will be published later this afternoon.
Emilie worked for Gagosian Gallery in New York City before moving abroad to oversee the opening of Galerie Goff+Rosenthal, the first New York City- based gallery to open a branch in Berlin. While at Gagosian, she worked closely with Season 1 artist Sally Mann and Season 3 artist Hiroshi Sugimoto. Her writing has appeared on artnet.com, Gridskipper, and she is now working with the Berlin-based collective Artists Anonymous, who operate galleries in Berlin and London and are currently showing in New York City at Cueto Project.
