Art and the Educational Threshold: The Aporia of Access

Abstract

The recognition that some people perceive the world of visual art as inaccessible remains an important point of departure. However, in the desire to open up the world of visual art to people who may perceive it as inaccessible, some art educators may get in the way of the art. This chapter frames the concept of “access” to worlds of art through Jacques Derrida's ethic of hospitality, an aporetic ethic in which those in the role of host give place to newcomers but do not predetermine newcomers' experience. Art education as advocated in this chapter provides access from the sense of responsibility to open up to others what was never ours to begin with, while recognizing the aporetic space in which art educators always do too much and too little at the same time.