Announcing Art21 Educators 2010-2011
Art21 Educators: The Summer Institute, July 2009.
The Education staff at Art21 is launching the second year of Art21 Educators and we are now accepting applications. For those of you just hearing about this program, Art21 Educators is an intensive, year-long professional development initiative designed to cultivate and support K-12 art educators interested in bringing contemporary art, artists, and themes into their classrooms.
This program provides a unique professional development opportunity for educators to:
- Spend an intensive year working with Art21 and a network of peers,which kicks off with a 6-day institute in New York City;
- Share innovative ideas, resources, and strategies with educators from across the country;
- and use video and other media to document and reflect on your teaching practice.
Don’t take our word for it. Listen to some of the current participants present their perspectives on Art21 Educators. In this uncut video testimonial, Keeley Stitt, an art teacher from Chicago, IL, discusses how the program made her rethink her ideas about art education.
Art21 Educators Testimonial: Keeley Stitt from Art21 on Vimeo.
Stacey Ward Kelly, a current Art21 Educator from Beacon, NY, shares how the Art21 Educators program changed her approach to teaching.
Art21 Educators Testimonial: Stacey Ward Kelly from Art21 on Vimeo.
This round of Art21 Educators we will be accepting applications from K-12 art and media teachers from across the United States. We want to create a diverse group of participants who reflect urban, rural, and suburban communities as well as distinct student populations.
Join us and be part of a national group of educators who will explore, design, and implement curriculum utilizing the visual art of our time. Apply now!
For an application form or more information, please visit art21.org.
Applications must be received by the Art21 Education Staff by Monday, February 26, 2010.
Questions? Read our FAQs or, if you’re still stumped, email education [at] art21.org
Julie Mehretu & the Problem of Shooting Big
In our new column, On Location, Art21 Director of Production Nick Ravich breaks his silence and gives you the scoop on Art21’s production comings and goings including, among other things, straight-from-the-set reports on recent shoots and some (hopefully) enlightening discussions on those areas where television production and contemporary art collide. And if we’re lucky, Nick will expand his column to include some non-Art21 related musings, reviews, interviews, and other ephemera on the world of production and art in general. — Ed.
In a previous blog post, I had talked about a recent Art21 online video shoot with art teacher Lucia Vinograd’s rather amazing students at Besant Hill School in Ojai, California (Lucia is part of our Art21 Educators professional development initiative.) At the time, I was only able to post a couple of screen grabs from the field footage, but now I’d love to give you an actual video sample. So below is a short but inspiring scene with Besant Hill School student Julie Yu painting with a very unconventional brush, assisted by fellow student Griffin Davis.
Art21 Uncut: Water Gun Painting at Besant Hill School from Art21 on Vimeo.
I’m also posting this short, unedited clip as a very informal way of inaugurating a new strand of Art21-produced video releases of (appropriately enough) more informal, off the cuff, backstage-revealing moments—stuff that’s a little less polished and structured than our “Exclusive” videos. After two plus years of diligently producing online-intended video content, the staff here was looking to create a regular home for these moments that, for whatever reason, sometimes don’t make the final cut. Additionally, the hope is that these clips point, in some way, to the behind-the-scenes production process, while also previewing future video “Exclusive” releases.
Julie Mehretu. Art21 production still, 2009.
And in keeping with today’s theme of amuse bouche video, I’m posting an uncut clip from an ambitious web-only video shoot that I know I definitely haven’t mentioned. We had the very good fortune to shoot the installation and final painting of Julie Mehretu’s monumental ten panel work at the new Goldman Sachs building in lower Manhattan (the initial creation of this painting in Berlin was an extensive part of our original broadcast segment on Julie.) Last fall, over the course of a month, Julie and a team of studio assistants and a professional installation crew uncrated, unrolled, stretched, hung, and further painted the work, on site, in the Goldman Sachs lobby. And we were able to shoot some key moments along the way. So below is a video of the painting fully hung, but not yet finished, from the unique bird’s eye view of a scissor lift.
Art21 Uncut: Julie Mehretu Painting at Goldman Sachs from Art21 on Vimeo.
Now, part of the reason I’m posting this is because, well, it’s just plain cool and I wanted to make sure our viewers saw it, as well give them a quick look at the kind of stuff they’ll be seeing in our soon-to-be-released “Exclusive” segments drawing on this footage. But the other reason is a little less self-promotional. This particular shot – a vertiginous, downward angled tracking shot on a 20-foot plus tall painting that elongates the top “foreground” painting elements but compresses the bottom “background” painting elements – points to a much bigger issue: the difficulty of fairly, accurately, faithfully shooting art on video. Part of Art21’s mission is not to just represent contemporary artists “in their own words” (i.e. in as unmediated way as possible) but to represent their artwork in as a similarly undistorted way as possible. For modestly scaled, easel-size works, this is a relatively easy thing to accomplish. But for works the size of Julie’s – in this case an 80 x 23 foot painting installed in a narrow corridor — it’s basically impossible. There’s literally no position we could put the camera in that would give us a wide shot of the full painting, and certainly not one that wouldn’t create the kind of classic edge distortion – key stoning effects where right angles seem to bend at the tape — that typically happens when shooting wide angle. Additionally, the graphic complexity and density of Julie’s imagery – the tremendous variety of line, shape, and color – wreak havoc with interlaced video’s sometimes crude ability to give a stable, color-uniform image.
So what to do?
Art21 Educator Joe Fusaro Teaching “Power” at Nyack High School
Embarrassing as it is, this is the first video I’ve ever made. I am immersed in the world of film production each day, yet focused on the Education side of Art21. It’s been a long journey to connect the two.
Where does an idea start? I don’t think it was just mine, but I was interested in some way to better articulate and share what was happening out there in the world when people actually saw and used Art21. How does one go about making a film of that moment when teachers, students, artists, and the casual viewer are confronted with artists talking about their work, the ideas behind it, and then attempt to DO something with that experience?
We needed a willing guinea pig for our first attempt to capture one of these stories. Joe Fusaro, Senior Education Advisor and weekly contributor to the Teaching with Contemporary Art Column, proved willing and more than able.
Joe told us about a unit he was teaching his 9th grade studio art classes at Nyack High School on the theme of Power. We jumped at the chance to be flies on the wall, with very large cameras and sound equipment. And it was not easy. We stumbled through interviews, and many of them. We awkwardly wrangled equipment while trying to remain unobtrusive and unintimidating. Room schedules were changed. Much paperwork was signed. We drove over the Tappan Zee Bridge countless times.
But the process was part of the journey and well worth the results. We are eternally grateful to Joe, his students, and his colleagues at Nyack High School for their patience, their generosity, and their continual support of this fledgling idea. We’ve gotten the production bug and we’re itching to make more. And on these next ones, we’ll be a little less nervous. We’ll keep it conversational. We’ll enjoy the process even more.
Mining Ideas Part 2: Using Sketchbooks to Help Teach About Contemporary Art
Last week’s Teaching With Contemporary Art column, Mining Ideas, had some very interesting thoughts and perspectives submitted by Jennifer, Eric, and Sue. I want to continue the dialogue this week by suggesting two ways educators can use sketchbooks to influence teaching with and about contemporary art.
During our time working with Contemporary Art Start at MoCA, Los Angeles this past August, we asked participants to use their sketchbook to plan an installation or site-specific work inspired by a big idea after viewing and discussing Art:21 segments featuring Alfredo Jaar and Allora & Calzadilla. Participants were then encouraged, after seeing a variety of sketchbook samples, to literally think big and label their plans with specific media, effects, scale, site details, lighting, sound effects, etc. Many participants mentioned not having the chance to think and plan in this way before, but it was clear that there was a certain freedom in utilizing the sketchbook to plan for something that in the end may be too large (or expensive, or delicate) to actually build. What was important was the fact that participants thought through their idea and committed that idea to paper.
A second idea for utilizing sketchbooks in the classroom involves teaching students to use them while they view films about art and artists. Students can use their sketchbooks to jot down quotes, create questions for the artist, write a short reaction to a specific work, or even begin “working off” a particular artist to begin new ideas for themselves. Any of these starting points (and generating starting points can be one of the greatest uses for a sketchbook) can lead to thoughtful and exciting finished works of art.
Please feel free to share some specific ways you use sketchbooks in the classroom to influence teaching and learning by posting a comment below.
Mel Chin | “Paydirt”
EXCLUSIVE: Mel Chin describes the origins and motivations behind the nationwide art project Paydirt in a keynote address to the 2008 National Art Education Association Convention, and visits multiple sites in New Orleans adversely affected by both Hurricane Katrina and lead contamination in the soil.
New Orleans is the second most lead contaminated city in the United States. Discovering that “the disaster was in the soil before the disaster,” Chin felt he had to do something about it as an artist. Speaking before a crowd of thousands of art educators from across the country, Chin recounts, “I remember standing in the ruins of the Ninth Ward and realizing as a creative individual that I felt hopeless and inadequate. And I was flooded by this terrible insecurity that being an artist was not enough to deal with the tragedy that was before me.” Thus Paydirt, and its sister initiative, the Fundred Dollar Bill Project was born.
Fundred focuses on the creation of three million artworks (personal drawings based on the likeness of a one hundred dollar bill) by children across the United States. These artworks, a collective creative action, will be delivered to Washington D.C. to raise awareness and funding for Paydirt. Ultimately Paydirt intends to heal the environmental impact of years of pollution on a city-wide scale. As Chin explains:
Mel Chin: “Fundred” at George Jackson Academy
Art21-featured artist Mel Chin (Season 1) originated the Fundred Dollar Bill Project to draw attention to and develop solutions for environmentally responsible rebuilding of New Orleans from below the ground up. The artworks – individually created Fundred Dollar Bills made by students – will be collected by an armored truck and delivered to Washington D.C., where an even exchange of the value of their art currency for actual funds will be requested.
This video was shot at George Jackson Academy in New York City, an independent middle school serving “bright boys from lower-income families” and which is participating in the project. Art teacher Gary Campbell worked with fourth- through eighth-graders to create Fundred Dollar Bills. This school is one of the collection centers for all bills created in New York State. Its students are featured discussing their involvement and thoughts on the current situation in New Orleans.
Mel Chin will unveil more details on the project and examples of Fundred Dollar Bills themselves at next week’s National Art Education Association convention in New Orleans.
Camera/Editing: Larissa Nikola-Lisa; Interviews: Tana Hargest. Sound Operator: David Roesing. PA: Peter Synder. Special thanks to Mel Chin; Mary Rubin and the entire Fundred Dollar Bill Project team; and the students and staff of George Jackson Academy, especially: Jason Alejo, Daniel Baldwin, Darshan Desai, Jamal Elliot, Lateef Fall, Peter Garcia, Lukas Grattan, Joseph Hatton, Mattiyas Letang, Momo Lewis, Fernando Medina, James Norman, Armondo Perez, Mitchel Thomas, Robert Williams.
