Thoughts on an arts curriculum.
IN 1987, I GAVE UP teaching in a BFA program because there seemed little point graduating students whose immediate prospects divided between waiting tables and enrolling in graduate schools. Instead, I taught at a 2-year technical school where the goals were clear; students had to be ready for employment as commercial artists upon graduation.
I've taught in many settings and have thought a lot about the ways in which the visual arts have been taught. When I studied painting there were no career courses or any discussion about life after school. Clearly things have changed for the better, if only because the advent of computers offered something resembling a career path for some and because parents demanded employable skills.
For historical reasons, making art in America has always presented the artist with an either-or proposition: either his art is low or high, popular or elitist, functional or visionary, commercial or “fine” art, with all the baggage associated with those labels. Art curricula mimic this dichotomy even as the Web moves to commercialize and commodify practically all images, including art. And while one can argue the qualitative and experiential differences between viewing an artwork and viewing its digital image, one can also argue that the Web (a medium that usually fails to provide context or reflect intention, both critical elements in art) makes up for its deficiencies by its sheer accessibility by more viewers than will ever visit any gallery or museum.
What I advocate is that both arguments have to be made in a modern curriculum. Perhaps it is time to update the Bauhaus approach to art, an approach which sought to replace the either-or choice of American art-making with a comprehensive study of art’s purposes in society. By the way, my aim is not to promote “socially aware” art. As I have discussed with teaching colleagues, surely there is some danger associated with teaching digital image manipulation to clever community college students who are given little background in the history of political propaganda, copyright law, and ethics. The popularization of the Web combined with 9/11 upheavals present artists, art instructors, and students a chance to invigorate art-making and to propose alternatives to the old either-or choice.
What would such a curriculum look like? A few things come to mind. First, I’ve yet to see any alternatives to life drawing, drawing from observation, design, and understanding color by mixing paint. Second, theory, history, and criticism are more vital today because quality and the ability to make qualitative assessments matter. Just as doctors in training can only develop diagnostic skills by frequently interacting with patients, so art students can only learn what quality means by participating in vigorous “crits”. Third, the influence of mass media, the shaping of information through the ages and 20th Century, and the societal role of the artist have to be taught, because the ubiquitous influence of the computer cannot be ignored or wishfully reduced to a personal medium like paint or clay. And fourth, teaching commercially sold, industry-standard graphics software without such a background merely chugs out cheap workers whose push button skills will be replaced with the next upgrade, cheaper workers overseas, or artificial intelligence.
