Expanding the Definition(s): Some Days Are Easier Than Others
Many thanks to those who have helped get the Teaching with Contemporary Art column off to a smooth start! Recently, a few friends and colleagues have mentioned (even e-mailed) about the fact that, well, while Season 4 of Art:21 has won quite a few prestigious awards, the selection of artists chosen can be difficult to transition into the classroom. As educators, how do we get our collective heads around teaching with Season 4 artists such as Mark Dion, Alfredo Jaar, Ursula von Rydingsvard and Laurie Simmons? These aren’t artists that lend themselves easily to K-12 or university-level curriculum, particularly if the course is production-based. How can artists like these, as well as artists such as Ann Hamilton (Season 1), Martin Puryear (Season 2), and Fred Wilson (Season 3) help us work with students in our classrooms?
First… they can help us redefine and expand on what art is and what it’s becoming in the 21st century. There aren’t too many neat little projects that fit perfectly with what some of these artists do, but the segments and related materials on art21.org help us work with students to consider new possibilities for subject matter and ways of working with traditional and non-traditional media. These segments can inspire writing in the classroom just as well as Elizabeth Murray may inspire students to paint in new ways. They can be the catalyst for spirited debate much like Trenton Doyle Hancock can act as a starting point for understanding cartooning or how artists develop/illustrate alter-egos. Mark Dion can teach about the relationship between art and ecology, as well as blurring the line between artist and curator. Alfredo Jaar can teach about public art and how contemporary art often needs a particular setting much like a great work of fiction. Ursula von Rydingsvard teaches how an artist today can create work that relates to landscapes, the human body and psychological states… sometimes simultaneously. And Laurie Simmons can teach that there is a difference between photographers as artists and artists that use photography as a tool.
While it’s hard to incorporate the ever-increasing number of artists that can meaningfully inspire and help guide students, it’s hard to NOT include artists that will help them open up definitions and engage in dialogue about what art is and what constitutes an artist to begin with. Bringing these artists into discussions and/or socratic seminars in the art classroom can have surprising and wonderful benefits. Is it easy? Never. Some days are easier than others. But it’s always worth it. I can tell you stories…..
Image: Untitled Hot Glue Drawing by Karyl DelMundo
Dialog:City in Denver
Later this summer, from August 22-29, the Denver metro area will host Dialog:City, a convergence of education, art and democracy. Slated as an exhibition and cultural event that “catalyzes civic discourse by inviting internationally renowned artists and designers to create participatory, interactive, and dialogical site-specific works in neighborhoods across the city.”
Taking place concurrently in Denver with the 2008 Democratic National Convention, Dialog:City has invited ten artists including R. Luke Dubois, Sharon Hayes, Paul Miller aka DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid, and Art:21 artists Ann Hamilton (Season 1) and Krzysztof Wodiczko (Season 3). Most of the artists will present site-specific installations that are simultaneous collaborations and initiatives with local schools and community groups to address topics such as “greening” and “what democracy means to you.”
Maya Lin and More at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego
Systematic Landscapes, a traveling exhibition of work by Season 1 artist Maya Lin, is on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego through June 30, 2008. The exhibition focuses on a trio of large-scale sculptural installations—2×4 Landscape, Water Line, and Blue Lake Pass (pictured above)—that wed the artist’s deep interest in forces and forms of nature with her long-standing investigation into sculptural forms. Watch a video featuring the installation of 2×4 Landscape at MCA San Diego here.
In a recent Los Angeles Times article, which took the MCA San Diego exhibition as its starting point, Lin discussed her current project for the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Calling it her “last memorial,” the commissioned piece will grieve for the animals, birds and plants driven into extinction—and warn of the urgency of acting now to halt the devastation. Envisioning the piece as a “multisite chronicle, including photography and video, at places around the world and with a commemorative list of names of extinct species,” it is scheduled to launch on Earth Day in April 2009.
MCA San Diego’s attention to nature and environmental issues in contemporary art continues this August with Human/Nature: Artists Respond to a Changing Planet. Art 21 artists Mark Dion (Season 4) and Ann Hamilton (Season 1) are included in this collaborative multi-year exhibition project that sent eight leading artists to UNESCO World Heritage sites around the globe to create new work informed and inspired by their experiences. Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, Marcos Ramírez ERRE, Rigo 23, Dario Robleto, Diana Thater and Xu Bing will also participate. Human/Nature is organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego and the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, in partnership with the international conservation organization Rare.
Photography on Photography at The Met
Last September, the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened a new gallery on the second floor dedicated exclusively to contemporary photographs. The second exhibition in this space, Photography on Photography: Reflections on the Medium Since 1960, opens to the public today.
This exhibition, organized by Doug Eklund, Assistant Curator in the Met’s Department of Photographs, includes Hiroshi Sugimoto (Season 3), Sherrie Levine, Andy Warhol, Robert Mapplethorpe, Richard Prince, Thomas Ruff, Vito Acconci, Kota Ezawa, Moyra Davey, Mary Wyse, and others. Malcolm Daniel, Curator in charge of the Department says, “This new selection [from the permanent collection] takes a narrower focus, showing how photographs since Conceptual Art have reflected on the medium itself in their work. With many more works by younger artists, the installation also provides more of a snapshot of where photography is at the moment.” Photography on Photography is on view through October 19, 2008.
Photographs began to enter the Met’s collection as early as 1928. Today their photography collection alone includes more than 20,000 works. A quick search through the Met’s online collection database returns names familiar to Art21 such as Ann Hamilton, William Wegman (both Season 1), Gabriel Orozco (Season 2), Robert Adams, and Laurie Simmons (both Season 4). Learn more about the Met’s photography department and its collection here.
Antoni, Charles, and Hamilton in Points of Convergence in TX
Currently on view at the Gallery at the University of Texas at Arlington is Points of Convergence. Seven nationally-recognized contemporary artists, who received MFA degrees from seven different American university art programs, have been paired with seven emerging artists currently completing the MFA program at those same universities for the exhibition, which runs through Tuesday, March 4.
Work by Art21 artists Janine Antoni (Season 2), Michael Ray Charles, and Ann Hamilton (both Season 1) is shown alongside that of David Bates, Ross Bleckner, Enrique Chagoya, and more.
In conjunction with the exhibition, Michael Ray Charles gave an illustrated lecture about his work last Thursday, Feb. 21. If you happened to attend, please share your impressions or any photos you may have taken with us.
For more information or visit www.uta.edu/gallery.
Video: Ann Hamilton’s Tower on SPARK*
Our friends at SPARK*, KQED’s arts program in San Francisco, recently made a wonderful film about the construction of Season 1 artist Ann Hamilton’s tower at Oliver Ranch. Art21 filmed Martin Puryear (and current subject of a MoMA retrospective) there in 2002, and Art21 artists Bruce Nauman, Richard Serra, and Ursula von Ryingsvard all have permanent installations on view there as well.
Read more about the tower and stream the video on SPARK*’s site, or catch the upcoming re-broadcast this week and next. View dates and times here.
More video: Ann Hamilton’s Corpus at MASS MoCA
Watch video documentation of Ann Hamilton’s Corpus, installed at MASS MoCA from December 2002 - October 2004. Hamilton was featured in Art in the Twenty-First Century Season 1.
View the video here.
[via the MASS MoCA blog]
