practicing theory: the intersection of aesthetic theory and artmaking practices for preservice...

National Art Education Association

Practicing Theory: The Intersection of Aesthetic Theory and Artmaking Practices forPreservice TeachersAuthor(s): Michelle KraftSource: Art Education, Vol. 59, No. 3 (May, 2006), pp. 13-19Published by: National Art Education AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27696142 .

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Mark discusses The Arch

with viewers.

icing

Intersection

of Aesthetic

lory and

iaking Practices

for Preservice

Teachers

Theory BY MICHELLE KRAFT

Jjecause making art is at the core of most

elementary and

secondary art classes,

many art educator

preparation curricula at

the university level emphasize studio

experiences.

While the "work" of art is central to the

discipline of art, it is through an

artwork's contextualization?deter

mining its surrounding historical

framework, interpreting its meaning within and, perhaps, outside of this

framework?that the artwork is fully realized. Terry Barrett (2003) explains that artworks yield "knowledge and

experiences only if the works of art are

interpreted1* (p. xvi). In enumerating

principles for interpreting art, he further

points out that a work of art is, by its

very nature, inclusive of some sort of

meaning and, most often, a full range of

meanings.This (or these) meaning(s) resides in the subtle interplay "between

object, discourse, and viewer" (Keifer

Boyd,Amburgy, & Knight,2003, p. 48), and allows the viewer opportunity for

self-awareness as she reflects upon her

response to the artwork (Barrett, 2003)1.

MAY 2006 / ART EDUCATION 13



It is the aspect of "discourse," within

the object-viewer-discourse triad, that is

most challenging as one is confronted

with the (art) object. Such discourse may take the form of one's personal and "gut" reaction to the work, or a recognition of

the symbol systems at play within the

art, or an acknowledgement of the

artwork's context within the continuum

of art history or the "art world." Similarly, this discourse may stem from an under

standing of the various art theories, and

therefore social constructs, at work within

an artwork.The dialogue may even arise

from one's own world view when deter

mining the meaning of the artwork.

The more of these elements that are

present between the viewer and the

object, the richer the experience of the

work's overlapping meanings. However,

becoming adept at this discourse takes

practice and can be achieved through an

understanding of the theory of art and

opportunity to apply various theories in

interpreting and making artworks.

Therefore, in this article, I present a

model for an undergraduate course in Art

Theory and Criticism that includes a

practical component in which students

demonstrate their understanding of

various theories of art by creating inter

active installations that provide opportu

nity for discourse.This practice of

connecting theory to artmaking enables

students?as both artists and viewers?

to approach the making/viewing of art

reflectively and through higher levels of

critical thinking.

Becoming adept at this

discourse takes practice

and can be achieved

through an under

standing of the theory

of art and opportunity to apply various theories

in interpreting and

making artworks.

The Course: Art Theory and Criticism

A fine arts advisory committee visiting our small private university recom

mended the development of the Art

Theory and Criticism course as a part of a new K-12 teacher certification program in Art. We implemented both the new

degree and the senior-level course in Fall

2003. Eight students enrolled in the

course that met one night per week; six

of these students were majors in the all

level Art Education program, one was

completing a secondary level teacher

certification in Art, and one was a

Social Work major.

The goal of the course was to famil

iarize the students with foundational and

current theories of the nature of art, art

making, and art meaning.To this end, course objectives were: (a) to introduce

students to foundations of early Western

aesthetic theory and its development, (b) to begin with the familiar and the

"comfortable" in art before transitioning to the unfamiliar and "difficult,"2 and (c) to allow students to practice their under

standing of theory through various

research and interpretive activities.These

activities included such components as

collaborative research, examination of

various artworks with accompanying

interpretive activities, and a culminating collaborative interactive installation,

including the accompanying exhibition, that demonstrated a chosen aesthetic

theory.

Venable (2001) discusses the benefits

of assuming the role of another as a

helpful tool in learning aesthetics and art

criticism. For this reason, students

adopted a particular aesthetic stance for

the creation of their installation projects. For instance, two students created their

installation from a feminist viewpoint?

becoming well-versed enough in the

theory to put it into practice in their

own artmaking?even though they were

unsure of whether or not they consid

ered themselves to be feminists. By

assuming the feminist role in the creation

of their work, though, their first-hand

understanding of the theory (put into

practice) was much more layered than if

their experience of the theory was

through research only.

Laying the Foundation: Preparation for the Exhibition

Design of the Course. Readings and

activities throughout the semester

provided groundwork for the "Points of

View" exhibition in which students

demonstrated their understanding of a

chosen theory through the creation and

display of interactive installations.

Students then invited friends to the

exhibition to interact with and discuss

the installations, along with discussion of

the concept of varied readings of art

through differing critical lenses, such as

Marxism, feminism, and virtual reality aesthetic theory.

Seven of the students in the course,

having studied in art-related fields, had

varying levels of exposure to various

artworks but had little direct knowledge3 of the underlying theories that histori

cally shaped Western art practice. Keifer

Boyd, Amburgy, and Knight (2003), point out:

Perception is never passive, nor

neutral... Perception is active inter

pretation, or making meaning. In

other words, what we SEE is not

primarily based on sense stimulus, but on past knowledge, situational

contexts, and cultural narratives.

Interventions reveal stored

knowledge: mindsets, categorization

systems we use, art traditions that

we prefer, life experiences,

education, associations, etc., that we

use for "reading" the visual, (p. 51)

The design of the course served not

only to survey the history of aesthetic

theory but also to provide for "interven

tions," opportunities to examine our

collective "stored knowledge." In order to

accomplish this goal we utilized two

textbooks: Aesthetics: The Classic

Readings, edited by David E. Cooper

(1997), and Leonard Diepeveen and

Timothy van Laar's (2001) Art with a

Difference: Looking at Difficult and

Unfamiliar Art, along with additional

selected readings.

Weeks 1-6 of the course were devoted

to "Foundations of Western Aesthetics," where we studied concepts such as

beauty, the sublime, aesthetic judgment,

expression, and modernism, through the

writings of Plato, Hume, Kant, Dewey, and

14 ART EDUCATION / MAY 2006



others. (See Figure 1 for the course

calendar, topics, and readings.) In Weeks

7-11, we shifted from modernism to

postmodernism and examined "Art

Theory of the 20th and 21st Centuries,"

exploring issues such as semiotic theory,

originality in art, and theories such as

Marxism, feminism/gender theory, and

environmental/eco-art aesthetics. Weeks

12-16 were devoted to "Critical Theory in

Practice," and we further explored issues

introduced in Weeks 7-11 through the

Diepeveen and van Laar text and planned and executed the installations and

exhibition.

Course Materials. The in-class guided discussions allowed us to thread our way

through the weighty reading materials.

Because the nature of the readings was

so heavy, I utilized as many concrete

examples of artworks and literature and

reinforcement-type activities as possible to illustrate authors' points. For instance, as we read Collingwood, students worked

in groups with a "Making/Creating"

questionnaire that provided the spring board for our discussion on what differ

ences, if any, existed between these two

activities. When we explored mimesis

through Plato, one group of students

assembled a bed while the other group drew a bed; from these, we discussed

what group members knew for certain

about "bed" through their individual

activities.4

Student Presentations. Students,

working in pairs, researched chosen

topics: Marxist theory, feminist theory, environmental aesthetics, and technology/ virtual reality aesthetics.The resulting

presentations included explanation of the

theory, an example of an artist working from this theoretical stance, and an open ended question or activity for class

discussion. For instance, after the presen tation on technology/virtual reality aesthetic theory, the presenters led the

class in a discussion of art existing only in virtual reality, asking such questions as,

is this art? Who is the artist? The user

who manipulates the work in virtual

reality? The person who created the

program? Students then built upon their

findings in their research for their subse

quent collaborative installations.

"Reading" an Image Minor (2001), in discussing Marxist

approaches to art history and criticism, shares a Marxist reading of Watteau's

Pilgrimage to Cythera. Through this

critical lens, Minor interprets the

leisurely life of the French aristocracy as

provided for by the French working

class, even as they themselves are

excluded, or alienated, from such

pleasant pursuits. Minor adds that the

painting possesses an "escapist aspect" and that "a Marxist would seize upon that

very issue, and attempt to show it as

'false' consciousness, because the pursuit of happiness by one class occurs at the

debilitating expense of another" in

Watteau's painting (Minor, 2001,

pp. 147-148).

Students in the Art Theory and

Criticism course also practiced inter

preting art through differing critical

lenses. As an example, for the viewer at

the Points of View exhibit, students

undertook an interpretive assignment in

which they used their chosen theories to

critique a work of art. We hung the

images alongside the accompanying

Date Topic Readings/Assignments

Part I: Foundations of Western Aesthetics Week 1 Introduction to course; Beginnings of

Western Aesthetics In Cooper: Plato, from The Republic ; Aristotle, from Poetics

Week 2 Beauty, the Sublime, and Aesthetic Judgment/Taste

In Cooper: Plotinus' Enneads; Hume's "Of the Standard of Taste"; and Kant's "Critique of Aesthetic Judgment"

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5

Week 6

Truth and Art

Art, Expression, and Experience Collaborative Presentations

The Nature of (Creating) Art

Modernism

Part II: Art Theory of the 20th and 21st Centuries Week 7 Introduction to Postmodernism,

Deconstruction, and Semiotic Theory Mid-term examination (essay)

Week 8 Originality in Art and Art as Commodity

In Cooper: Schiller, from On the Aesthetic Education of Man; and Hegel, from Introduction to Aesthetics ; Provided reading: Wilde's The Decay of Lying.

In Cooper: Tolstoy's "On Art" (pp. 164-176); Dewey, Discuss from Art as Experience (pp. 208-228).

Provided reading: Dickie's "Art as a Social Institution"; In Cooper: Collingwood, from The

Principles of Art {pp. 244-265).

In Cooper: Bell's "The Aesthetic Hypothesis" (pp. 177-192); Provided readings: Fry and Greenberg.

Bring Cooper text and additional readings for mid term essay exam.

Provided reading: Krauss' "The Originality of the Avant-Garde: A Postmodern Repetition."

Week 9 Marxist Theory: Student Presentation Freud and Psychoanalytical Theory in Art

Week 10 The "Other" Feminist/Gender Theory in Art: Student Presentation; Discuss Final Exam Project

Week 11 Environmental Aesthetics: Student Pr?s. Technology, Virtual Reality, and Aesthetics: Student presentation

Part III: Critical Theory in Practice Week 12 The Museum and the Canon

Planning session for Final Exam Project

Week 13 Art and Difficulty Planning session for Final Exam Project

Week 14 Final Exam Project

Week 15 Final Exam Project Event/Exhibit

Final Exam Reflections and De-briefing

In Diepeveen and van Laar, Chapters 2 and 3: "Western Art and Other Cultures" and "Outsider Art" (pp. 34-92).

For Nov. 11 : Museum Analysis Assignment

In Diepeveen and van Laar, Chapter 1 : "Art Museums" (pp. 1-33) Museum Assignment due.

In Diepenveen and van Laar, Chapter 4: "Art and Difficutly" (pp. 93-121).

Final Exam Project Preparatory Assignment due

Written reflections due

Figure 1. Art Theory and Criticism Course Calendar.




critiques in the exhibit to illustrate the

varied "readings" of an artwork,

depending upon the theoretical lens

through which the work is viewed. For

instance, two groups examined Degas'

LAbsinthe, while two interpreted Andy

Goldsworthy's Soul of a Tree. The:

students' eco-art/environmental reading of Goldsworthy's piece focused upon the

artist's use of natural objects?icicles and

a tree?in creating the artwork in a way that prompted the viewer to see these

objects, and perhaps nature, differently

(Mark and Melody5, Personal communica

tion, November 18, 2003).The technolog ical reading of the same Goldsworthy

piece centered around his use of photog

raphy in recording the image, the notion

of capturing the impermanent on film, and whether the natural objects, that no

longer exist in this state, or the photo

graph itself was the artwork (Kari and

Adam, Personal communication, November 18, 2003). (See also Figure 2

for students' examples of Marxist and

feminist readings of Degas' LAbsinthe.)

The Installations With the first step of research into the

theories already completed, students

worked in incremental steps with their

partners toward the creation of their

interactive installations. We explored multi-media/installation exhibitions and

several artworks that utilized these

techniques. Prior to installation, students

presented their installation plans to one

another, including the title of the installa

tion, a description of its size, materials for

construction, plans for audience interac

tivity; a brief interpretation and rationale

behind the work; and two "find card"

questions for the invited viewers.6 The

four collaborative installations were titled

Nature's Arch, The Antenna, Alien

Nation, and Woman's World.

Nature's Arch Nature's Arch, created by Mark and

Melody, was composed of an arch of

tumbleweeds suspended from the

ceiling, near the entrance of the gallery. With artists such as Lynne Hull and Andy

Goldsworthy as their influences, the

students explained that their notion was

to take a natural object that was "dead

and useless" and "in abundance" in the

West Texas area and enable the viewer to

notice it within a different context,

showing that "nature can still be

beautiful even after death" (Mark and

Melody, Personal communication, December 8, 2003).The arch, Mark and

Melody explained, recollected symbols of

power and victory, as with Roman

triumphal arches, just as nature is often

triumphant over advances in population

growth and readily reclaims areas that

are abandoned by people (Personal

communication, December 8, 2003). Mark and Melody also added bits of

natural objects to their arch, such as

leaves, twigs, feathers, etc.; they provided similar small objects?both human-made

and organic?from which viewers could

select and add to the arch, too.The

students asked their viewers, through their find cards, to consider and share

their reasons for the objects they selected to add to the artwork, such as

why they may have selected manufac

tured over natural objects for the arch.

Their intention was that the viewers had

to interact with Nature's Arch?if no

more than to walk through it as they entered the gallery space?and that the

artwork would constantly change

through participants' additions to it.

Amanda and Emily's Feminist Reading of

Edgar Degas' l'Absinthe

The woman in this painting is enclosed within her own world. Her hands rest

demurely in her lap; her feet rest politely on the floor. The wine glass on the table in front of

her seems untouched as she stares out into space. Her thoughts appear to be fixed

elsewhere, and she is totally uninterested in her present reality. She sits in the caf?, next to a

man, whose attitude is completely different from her own. He is relaxed, his feet spread

apart, his arm resting on the table. His gaze is focused off-canvas and is engaged, as if he is

carrying on a conversation with a fellow patron. . .

The woman sits obediently silent, while her counterpart takes on the more

challenging and intellectual tasks. He seems to own the place, while she sits idle, incapable of making herself useful in a man's world of commerce. His pipe seems to take on further

embodiment of domination in that he is contemplating weighty matters, puffing away, while she sits engrossed in nothing, waiting for his command.

It is as though she cannot exist without him. She may dress herself and arrange her

hair, but she is incapable of making thoughtful decisions about the world. She is an object of beauty, to be looked at, but not admired, in the world of men.

Sarah and Meredith's Marxist Reading of

Edgar Degas' l'Absinthe

At first glance at The Class of Absinthe, the viewer instantly notices the solemn man

and woman sitting at a table, engrossed in their own bleak atmosphere, not noticed each

other or anything else but their own thoughts. The artist's use of dull colors enhances this

depressed mood. . . The couple is alienated from the rest of the world and each other. Each

person is looking in his or her own direction. The gap in the table between them seems so

wide, separating what seems to be a couple into two complete strangers. They may have

just come back from a long day's work to unwind at a local bar, but they are disconnected due to the overwhelming burden of daily life overshadowing their thoughts. The woman's

expression especially depicts her detachment. The glass of absinthe that is sitting in front of

the woman speaks to the possibility of her ordering a strong liquor to further alienate herself from the rest of the world. The captivating appeal of the piece comes from the

commonality of the feeling of isolation all humans experience at some time in his or her life.

This sense of alienation encompasses every aspect of society including leisure time as well as

work.

Figure 2. Art Theory and Criticism students' feminist and Marxist readings of Edgar Degas' l'Absinthe.




Kari and Adam creating The Antenna. Viewers examine Alien-Nation.

The Antenna Kari and Adam's The Antenna

responded to our voyeuristic society and

the disappearing luxury of privacy as we

are observed virtually everywhere by video security cameras, and as we

observe others through Internet cameras

(web cams) and "reality TV?'The students

constructed a tent-like structure of PVC

pipe and black tarp. At one end of the

tent was an entrance for participants and

inside the darkened space was a televi

sion that displayed fuzzy static.Atop the

TV was a pair of rabbit ear antennae.

Once inside, the viewer received an

elaborate list of instructions that

included donning a set of bunny ears,

tightly shutting his or her eyes, and

counting to ten before opening them to

see what image appeared on the screen

(nothing did). Meanwhile, a hidden

camera monitored the viewer's antics, which were displayed on a separate television monitor behind the tent for

outside viewers to see.Through their

installation, Kari, Adam, and gallery visitors explored not only the notion of

the daily monitoring of one's life, but also

the role of the participant within their

specific artwork.

Alien-Nation With Alien-Nation, Meredith and Sarah

explored, from a Marxist viewpoint, what

they perceived as alienation within

families as children retreat inwardly

through play with video games.They cast

the parents as the "workers" who facili

tated the leisure, but also the alienation, of their children by providing the (game) resources.Their installation included

seating behind a black drape that acted

as a partition between the participant and the remainder of the gallery. Behind

this partition were video games for the

participant to play. On the wall behind

the game area, Sarah and Meredith hung silhouettes of a man and woman in

business attire, representing the working

parents. They also "placed blank pieces of

paper on the wall behind the area with

the video games and colorful children's

art work on the walls further away from

the games" to signify what they felt was a

contrast in levels of creative activity between children who were provided

opportunities for interaction and

creativity versus those immersed in game

playing (Personal communication, December 9,2003). Sarah and Meredith

then asked participants to evaluate their

own reactions to their time playing the

video games: Was it stimulating?

Interpersonal? What were they thinking?

Woman's World Emily and Amanda created a life-size,

stand-up paper doll for Woman's World

and placed her against a backdrop of

three different settings, including an

office, a kitchen, and a sports field. They included three changes of paper clothing that participants could affix to the doll

with clothespins, dressing her and

situating her within whichever setting

they chose. Across the settings, Emily and

Amanda added statistical information,

gleaned from the Guerilla Girls website,7

addressing women's representation in

the art world. Last, they provided a

Polaroid camera with which viewers

could snap a photograph of the dressed

and placed paper doll, or themselves

with the paper doll, and attach those to

the settings. Like Nature's Arch, Woman's

World continued to change throughout the evening of the exhibition as partici

pants added to and altered the installa

tion. Amanda said of the piece: "Our

installation was intended to confront the

viewer about their perceptions of

women's status in society and their

accepted role[s].As this 'accepted role'

may differ extremely from person to

person, I was curious to see the reaction

to it and the ways that the viewer might

respond" (Personal communication, December 9, 2003).

MAY 2006 /ART EDUCATION 17



KArt educators have numerous opportunities to engage students of all levels to actively practice aesthetic theory

tymmersectins it with artmaking.

Amanda and Emily constructing Woman's World.

The Exhibition The Art Theory and Criticism class

hosted the Points of View exhibit event as a portion of their final exam project. Students each invited two friends to the event, and these participants interacted

with the works, discussed the pieces with the guidance of the find cards, and

shared their findings with other viewers in the gallery. Likewise, students shared

with the viewers their intentions for

their installations. After the event, students responded to the experience

through written reflections.These reflec

tions included points on the collabora

tive process and preparation, installation

and exhibition outcomes, viewers'

responses to the installation, and how

students felt their works responded to

their chosen aesthetic theories.

Conclusions The students' work with their collabo

rative installations allowed them to put their theories into practice and also

provided a means by which they could

present what they had learned to viewers at the event, few of whom had a

background in art. Students were alter

nately pleased and concerned with some

viewers' responses to their work.The

aesthetic question of whether the instal

lations were "art" or not inevitably arose

among some viewers; as Melody said:

[Viewers] responses were mostly

positive, but my two participants didn't consider it artwork.They

thought it was a good concept and interesting, but they couldn't get

past the thought of tumbleweeds having any value. My participants both felt that an artwork has to have some type of monetary value in

order for them to consider it art.

(Personal communication, December

8,2003)

Students, however, accepted their

friends' discomfort with the nature of

their installations, which fell outside the more familiar realms of painting and

sculpture. Sarah explained, "I was uneasy

[about our installation] because I knew that other people would be uncomfort

able with our 'difficult' art. But I feel like

it was a growing process for me to appre ciate our installation, but know that those

others may not" (Personal communica

tion, December 9,2003). The students did feel that their partici

pants' interactions with and interpreta tions of their installations provided some

powerful insights. Adam felt himself to be acting in the role of artist with The

Antenna because of his role as an author

of the concept behind the installation. It never occurred to Adam that some of his

viewers would consider him the artist by

virtue of his role in manipulating them as

they participated in the work (Personal communication, December 9,2003). Adam said:

One [participant] explained how the artist was the person who

constructed the installation because

that was the person responsible for

getting the participant to put on the ears and do the requested things on

the card. If the constructor didn't

have them do anything, then there

would be no art. Some of the other

participants said that the artist was

the television [monitor that

broadcast participants' antics] because if there wasn't any televi

sion to see what the person inside

[the tent] was doing, then how could we know what was going on

inside the dark room? And therefore, [the] art would cease to exist.

(Personal communication, December

9,2003) The participants' responses to the

individual installations also provided the students with some revelations

concerning their own works. Sarah was

surprised that, while some of the game

players in Alien-Nation acknowledged their realization that they were not inter

acting socially while they played, they still characterized their playing time as

"stimulating," a nice release from the

stresses of the day. She responded, "This

made me realize that people enjoy

escaping from this world and not having to be creative and relational. It made me

realize that the alienation of our society is self-induced rather than put on one by other people" (Personal communication,

9,2003). Amanda, likewise, learned from

her viewers' responses to Woman's

World; "Personally, my idea of a woman's

role was not even represented in our

installation, and my invitees expressed it




best when they conveyed that they desired to put all of the outfits on the

woman" (Personal communication, December 9, 2003).8

The ability to consciously practice,

firsthand, the theories that we had

studied throughout the semester facili

tated students' insights of some rather

weighty concepts as they impact art

practice and criticism. Kari, the non-art

major in the class, said of her practice of

theory,'! liked the whole part of making an unique piece of art; it gave us an

ownership quality" (Personal communi

cation, December 8, 2003).This

"ownership quality" points to students'

self-awareness through their own

practice of discourse with art theory,

practice, and meaning.

Students' actual practice with the

varied theories of art heightened their

awareness of and proficiency in working within the object-viewer-discourse triad

as they themselves created the artworks

and facilitated the discourse between

their installations and the viewers during the Points of View exhibition. Art

educators have numerous opportunities to engage students of all levels to actively

practice aesthetic theory by intersecting it with artmaking. While I present here

one approach to accomplishing this

intersection of theory and practice, art

educators may devise a variety of activi

ties that allow students' practice of

theory. Such practice develops students'

abilities to think critically about their

work, to engage aesthetic theory and

consider its impact on their own art

viewing and art making in a self-reflec

tive and meaningful way, and to gain a

clearer comprehension of weighty critical theories through active

exploration.

Michelle Kraft is Associate Professor

of Art Education in the Department

of Communication and Fine Arts,

Lubbock Christian University,

Lubbock, Texas. E-mail:

michelle. kraft@lcu. edu

REFERENCES Barrett, T. (2003). Interpreting art: Reflecting,

wondering, and responding. New York: McGraw Hill.

Bell, C. (1981).The aesthetic hypothesis. In D. E. Cooper (Ed., 1997), Aesthetics: The classic readings (pp. 177-192). Maiden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.

Collingwood, R. G. (1938).The principles of art. In D. E. Cooper (Ed., 1997), Aesthetics: The classic readings (pp. 244-265). Maiden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.

Cooper, D. E. (Ed., 1997). Aesthetics:The classic

readings. Maiden, MA: Blackwell

Publishing.

Diepeveen, L., & van Laar,T. (2001). Art with a

difference: Looking at difficult and

unfamiliar art. New York: McGraw Hill.

Guerilla Girls: Re-inventing the "f" word feminism. [On-line]. Available:

http ://www. guerillagirls. com

Keifer-Boyd, K.,Amburgy, P., & Knight,W. B.

(2003).Three approaches to teaching visual culture in K-12 school contexts. Art

Education, 56(2), 44-51.

Keifer-Boyd, K, & Kraft, L. M. (2003). Inclusion

policy in practice. Art Education, 56(6), 46-53.

Minor,V H. (2001). Art history's history. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Venable, B. B. (2001). Using role play to teach and learn aesthetics. Art Education, 54(1), 47-51.

EMDPJO?E5 1 Venable (2001), too, points to the develop

ment of (self) reflection and verbal skills

through the practice of discourse afforded

through aesthetic discussion. 2 Diepeveen and van Laar (2001) point out that

current practices of art appreciation are

"increasingly critical" (p. ix) of traditional

assumptions about art, art making, and

meaning. Their book,^4ri with a Difference: Looking at Difficult and Unfamiliar Art,

provided some counterpoint to the Western

emphasis of the first part of the semester and acted as a tool for students in approaching art and art theory that, to them, might prove unfamiliar.

3 Certainly every student in the class had

acquired beliefs about art and art making that were shaped through previous art experiences in their education, through family, etc. An

examination of Western art theory, though, would articulate some aspects of these beliefs of which students were only vaguely aware

and, in doing so, allow them to reflect upon their own values regarding art. For instance,

we explored the notion of high art versus low art through Clive Bell's (1981) discussion of

William Frith's The Railway Station, as illustra tive of "descriptive painting" rather than art, and how Bell's theories have affected the way that we approach works of art even now.

4For instance, the group that built the bed knew its construction?where screws went, how the parts fit together?while the group that drew the bed (that revealed only three

legs because of their use of perspective) could not say with certainty, based on their drawings, that the bed even had four legs and knew

nothing of the bed's construction. This situation led us to Plato's point that "a repr? senter knows nothing of value about the

things he represents" and his subsequent banishment of artists from his "Republic" (Cooper, 1997, p. 21). 5 Students' names are pseudonyms. "The find cards, a tool that Karen Keifer-Boyd and I used in an earlier student exhibition

(Keifer-Boyd & Kraft, 2003), included student

developed, open-ended questions for the

purposes of eliciting audience participation and response to the works. Students used these with their guests during our gallery discussion the night of the Points of View

opening. 'See this information at

http : //www. guerillagirls. com.

"It is noteworthy, regarding Woman's World, that allowing the viewer to dress the paper doll woman strongly pointed to the concept of the objectification of women in the artwork's

portrayal of a woman as a thing to be dressed

up or placed within a "doll house" setting.

Emily, in her later reflections, alluded to this when she said,

" [The participants] saw through

the installation piece how women are 'fit' into

certain roles" (Personal communication, December 8, 2003).




practicing theory: the intersection of aesthetic theory and artmaking practices for preservice...

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