Abstract
The article presents a workshop on art evaluation addressed at university students of the humanities. The aims of the workshop involve defining the terms ‘art’ and ‘kitsch’, analysing the functions of art throughout the ages, understanding the difference between an educated and uneducated art viewer, the importance of a canon of masterpieces of art for preserving the cultural heritage of Europe, and the problem of personal expectations concerning art. Scholarly content is presented to the students via a workshop based on coaching methods developed by cognitive psychology. The choice of this mode of work allows students to express themselves freely, teaches them how to defend their own opinions, improves their ability to see different points of view, and develops creativity. The workshop begins with a preliminary survey to identify the issues the students need help. It consists of 4 sessions (1.5 hours each) and ends with an evaluation. The proposed workshop can be extended with additional modules, tailored to the participants’ specific needs.
Highlights
Today’s media-promoted mass culture focused on consumer lifestyle and geared to the aggressive promotion of visual discourse and the belief in “the end of the Gutenberg era”, poses, for its conscious recipients, a number of dilemmas with the evaluation of its multiple products
Apart from the standard forms of university teaching such as lecture or debate, we have proposed methods developed in coaching, namely brainstorming, switching between the points of view, and the circle of priorities
The proposed workshop was tailored to the expectations and needs of recipients indicated by them in the preliminary survey
Summary
Today’s media-promoted mass culture focused on consumer lifestyle and geared to the aggressive promotion of visual discourse and the belief in “the end of the Gutenberg era”, poses, for its conscious recipients, a number of dilemmas with the evaluation of its multiple products. Analysing the complex reality behind semiotically-understood cultural eISSN 2335-2388 Respectus Philologicus texts and interpreting them are just the initial steps towards the most challenging third stage, namely their evaluation. This problem primarily concerns contemporary art in the context of people communicating within a social space that has many features of liquid modernity. The paradigmatic categorisation of artefacts or cultural products into high or low art no longer applies, because liquid modernity equals “war on all kinds of paradigms and homeostatic devices that support conformity and routine, burdening culture with monotony and sustaining the repeatability of events” (Baumann 2011: 14). Peterson (2011) puts at the top of the cultural hierarchy those who consume all components of the available repertory, from theatre productions to breakfast television, and do not criticise anybody for choosing something that has so far been considered – by the elites – as inferior
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