University Art Department Research Articles

‘Becoming a work of art’ revisited: Ecologies of collaboration in tertiary visual arts education1

Collaboration continues to be a growing focus of teaching, learning and research in university art departments. We are also witnessing a turn towards ecological and multispecies approaches in contemporary arts practice and education across the university sector and creative industries. In this revisitation of our earlier work, we ask how the transition into ecological understandings of collaboration might disrupt and reorientate humanist ontologies of visual arts education in the university. We draw on posthumanist and new materialist theories to reconceptualize collaboration in ways that are responsive to the ecological entanglements that comprise a work of art under current climatological and biodiversity crises. From there we develop a cartographic analysis of collaborative works of art in the making, drawing on a year-long participatory study with third-year undergraduate art students. In the final section we revisit our proposition for ‘becoming a work of art’ through more-than-human collaboration and explore the implications of this concept for speculative pedagogic practice and curriculum making in arts education.

“Sure a Strong Devil”: Mabel Frazer, A. B. Wright, and the University of Utah Art Department's 1937 Sexual Misconduct Case

“Sure a Strong Devil”: Mabel Frazer, A. B. Wright, and the University of Utah Art Department's 1937 Sexual Misconduct Case

Becoming a work of art: Collaboration, materiality and posthumanism in visual arts education

Abstract Collaboration has become a core aspect of teaching, learning and research in university art departments, especially as contemporary artists have increasingly turned to collective and socially engaged studio practices. Despite this, hylomorphic approaches to arts education continue to position matter as a passive substance to be shaped by the artist(s) in service of linguistic discourse. In this article, we ask how a new materialist approach to collaboration might disrupt humanist ontologies of visual arts education in the university. We first draw on posthumanist writings to re-compose collaboration in ways that are responsive to the specificity of material entanglements as they are enacted within an ecology of studio practices. From there we work diagrammatically across a collaborative ‘data event’ of art in the making, drawing on a year-long participatory study with a cohort of third-year art students. In the final section, we develop propositions for collaboration as a transversal practice of ‘becoming a work of art’.

Transformative Partnerships: Designing School‐Based Visual Arts Outreach Programmes

AbstractPartnerships between informal learning environments and schools have been cited as an innovative, effective way for museums, galleries and schools to work together to enrich classroom curricula, support student success, and facilitate the utilisation of available community museum and cultural resources. This article reports on findings from a multi‐year, exploratory arts outreach programme for 31 elementary and secondary visual art educators from a rural school district in the American South. The outreach programme was conceived in partnership with faculty from the neighbouring university's art department, school of education and university art gallery. Utilising a partnership framework, the travelling exhibit was developed through a collaborative research relationship with the participating visual art educators. Findings from this programme indicate that travelling exhibits can be an effective mode of programme delivery for informal learning environments while also supporting the content needs for classroom arts educators if the programme stresses transformative partnerships across all invested parties.

Computer graphics curricula in the visual arts

Computers have recently emerged as commonplace on the scene in a record number of university art departments. This rapid change has created the need for new curriculum in the computer art discipline. In designing these courses I see three ideas that are paramount to any computer graphics curriculum in the visual arts. First, the courses and course work should focus on individual expression and creativity, second, the instruction should include an awareness of the “wow” factor, and third, the courses should include a balance of computer art, traditional art, computer science, and academics such as theory, art history, and criticism.

W.A.R.P.: A Radical Solution to Teaching Foundations

The Workshop for Art Research and Practice (W.A.R.P.), at the University of Florida, Gainesville, is a radical solution for the teaching of foundations within a state university art department. The course introduces beginning students to the practice of contemporary art, especially recognizing the impact that critical theory and new media have had on the field. It also seeks to redress the cultural homogenization of the students, often attributed to the public education system, as well as to the general influence of mass media.

Art and Artists of Twentieth-Century China (review)

Reviews 557 worthwhile read, and should appeal to tiiose with a growing curiosity about overseas Chinese matters. Donald A. Jordan Ohio University, Athens DonaldJordan ¿5 aprofessor ofhistory specializing in Republican China and its relations with Japan. im Michael Sullivan. Art and Artists ofTwentieth-Century China. London, Berkeley, and Los Angeles: University ofCalifornia Press, 1996. xxvii, 354 pp. Hardcover, isbn 0-520-07556-0. For those of us who studied modern Chinese art before 1980, Michael Sullivan's Chinese Art in the 20th Centurywas one of the few English-language resources available at that time. Other books that address twentieth-century Chinese art have been written since then, but generally they are devoted to a particular time period or artistic medium. Indeed, it is a daunting task to chronicle this fascinating but confusing period in China's art history; however, in his new book Art and Artists ofTwentieth-Century China, Michael Sullivan has done just diat. In this greatly expanded (354 pages), lavishly illustrated (ninety-four color plates and 278 black-and-white figures) new publication, Sullivan has borrowed only six pages from his previous book. The author admits that tiiis new effort represents more a personal view than a definitive study of the topic. Still, he has provided his readers with an abundance ofboth subjective observations and objective information as he recounts the rebirth and evolution of Chinese art in the twentieth century under the influence ofWestern art and culture. Beginning his study in the late nineteenth century and ending in the early 1990s, Sullivan traces the emergence ofWestern art in China and the evolution of its various media and styles, and he documents the series ofongoing confrontations between the practitioners ofWestern and traditional Chinese art. Art in twentieth-century China cannot be divorced from China's political history, and Sullivan acknowledges this. Consequently, he has selected for discussion some y mversity works 0f^1 for pUreiv aestiietic reasons, while others were chosen for what they illustrate about the politics of a particular period. The book is divided into five sections. Four are devoted to specific and important time periods, and die fifth, "Odier Currents," explores the evolution of ofHawai'i Press 558 China Review International: Vol. 5, No. 2, Fall 1998 Chinese art outside the People's Republic. Each section is divided into chapters that address, among other items of interest, specific artistic schools, various media , and trends in die Chinese art world. Sullivan is at his best in "Part One: 1900-1937: The Impact of the West" and "Part Two: 1937-1949: War and Civil War," covering historical periods that he has researched extensively. In "Part One," Sullivan explores the revival of traditional painting in the early part of the twentieth century, discusses the two important centers of traditional art in Beijing and Shanghai, and introduces the leading masters and dieir students. However, he also acknowledges the limitations of traditional Chinese painting in its ability to reflect accurately the history of this period. In truth, traditionally trained Chinese artists could not ignore the challenges of Western art. By the early twentieth century, Western drawing and painting were a compulsory part of the curriculum in all Chinese schools and university art departments. This reform went hand in hand with the vision of regenerating Chinese culture that was held by the outspoken minister of education, Cai Yuanpei. Cai was such an enthusiastic supporter ofWestern art that his zeal alone prompted many an artist to go abroad and study it firsthand. Sullivan documents the impact of artists who turned to the West for inspiration as well as the major centers of modern Western art in China. He explores the problems of artists practicing Western oil painting in the early part of the twentieth century and the often formidable obstacles they faced. Ironically, Chinese oil painters encountered many of the same problems during the 1980s, including an uninformed public, a dearth of art critics, the cost of the new materials compared to the traditional ink and paper, and being in the difficult position ofpracticing Western oil-painting styles no longer considered part of the cutting edge. An entire chapter is devoted to the Lingnan School in Canton, which introduced into China the...

Artistic Freedom and the University

The issue of censorship can rarely he separated from the question of patronage. For most of history, the artist has had to pander to the expectations of the nobility, the rich, or the public. Because patronage is seldom self-effacing, art is often an expression of those who support it as much as those who make it. The modern university is a unique development in the history of patronage. In its ideal form, the university is a public investment in research and teaching that is free from political or religious interference. University art departments are one facet of this public commitment.

Computers in College University Art Departments: Present and Future

Computer applications have dramatically expanded, both in number and diversity, in higher education during the past decade. A survey of art departments in four-year institutions was conducted to determine the extent of computer applications within this discipline and to identify factors affecting computer usage. Survey data indicated that computer applications were limited, although over a third of the responding departments had some applications in the areas of administration, research, or instruction. Factors affecting computer use included: lack of faculty background, budget limitations, program size and specializations, graduate program emphasis, and type of institution. Computer applications in society and education will continue to grow and art departments need to be informed about the potential of computer technology within their field and develop a computer policy to help direct future program activity in this area.

Women in College Art Departments and Museums

The College Art Association, in common with almost all of the organizations sponsored by particular academic disciplines and professions in the United States, recently demonstrated its concern with the current status of women in the professions that it represents by forming a Committee on the Status of Women.1 Women members of the C.A.A. have independently expressed their belief that discrimination against women is a serious problem in these professions by forming a Women's Caucus.2 Members of the Caucus have begun to collect and disseminate information about the distribution of women in college and university art departments and art museums. They are also trying to define the particular kinds of problems faced by women artists, art historians and museum professionals; to publicize the legal avenues of redress now available to women who believe that they have been discriminated against; and to sponsor and encourage such political action as will lead to the elimination of discrimination against women.

The Future Art Education

My thesis is that the ultimate appropriate goal for a university art department remains unchanged: to teach students what it means to become an educated person. means change, the influences and conditions change, the times change. But so long as art students emerge ignorant of standard fields of knowledge, and so long as art departments conceive of their own responsibilities autonomously, the cultural goals will be set back. There is some danger of misunderstanding my thesis. It seems to shift the problem from the one stated the ultimate goals of an art department to a philosophic problem of identifying the meaning of that elusive being, the educated person. Before I am finished I hope to show that I have dealt with both problems. future is served by the past, I firmly believe. It is a commonplace even among experimentalists to observe that one of our most seminal and creative minds, Bach, made extensive use of fellow composers' ideas conscious plagiarism for he delighted in creative ideas wherever found. But the future is served by the past only when intelligence is the guide; otherwise we continue ghettos, the spanking of children, and the death penalty. In a similar vein, The future belongs to those who seize it, is another slogan in which I believe, though again this idea needs to be controlled and interpreted. Unbridled experimentalism is an unmitigated, blind, pernicious sin. Trial and error experiment always and necessarily carries more errors than successes in its method, and the experimentalist, so-called, often ignores his failures indeed, may even exhibit them, leaving it to another more responsible critic to point them out. Between blind tradition and impetuous novelty lies a practical ideal. Day by day most of us try to improve, and so too, year by year. What follows are my reflections on the major goals art faculties ought to work toward in their total programs, starting from where they are. picture is necessarily drawn in broad strokes. discussion is divided into three parts. first is a brief review of something of the past of art education. second is a description of what I take to be the present goals of art education departments in colleges and universities, and the third concerns a justifiable future for art education in a university setting.

The Aims of a University Art Department

Being a statement prepared by faculty members of the Division of Art, The Catholic University of America, which served as an introduction to the proposed new graduate program in fine arts leading to the MA and MFA degrees as recommended to the university faculty. It was based upon a curriculum outlined in ART JOURNAL XXIV 13 (Spring, 1965) pp. 244–249. Concurrently the undergraduates at Catholic U. drew up their fine arts program in proposals that also relied upon this JOURNAL article. “We have been fighting to justify our existence as teaching members of a university art department and to find our place as a department in the university structure.”

The Aims of a University Art Department

The Aims of a University Art Department

Basket Weaving 109

I am a teacher in the art area offering “Basket Weaving 109” and other notoriously meaningless courses. Another way of identifying myself, is to say that I am one of those people who is most often found in the lower echelons of a college or university art department: a teacher who has the weakest students and the most questionable curriculum.

The Utilitarian Fallacy in Art Training

The University Art Department is facing continuous pressure from certain groups who advocate a more utilitarian approach to the training of our students. It is well, therefore, to reexamine the primary function of art training on the college level.

New Appointments 1936–1937 College and University Art Departments

New Appointments 1936–1937 College and University Art Departments