Erickson and Villeneuve's (2009) concluded that art teachers who are fluent in a broad range of view points are better prepared to guide their students in making insightful judgments about their own and their peers' artwork. 

 

I have found 5 artworks from different times and society, medium and technique according to the theme 'Dance'. I tried to adopt Postmodern Pluralism in selecting artworks, rather than be literal.

 

Philosopher Richard Shusterman argued that "Postmodernism insisits that art and aesthetics are too powerful and pervasive in our social, ethical, and political world to be considered on their own apart form their non-aesthetic influences. If it diminishes the sublime claims of high art, postmodernism compensates by making aesthetics more central to the mainstream issues of life". Even if it is Postmodernism has lack of clarity, it is certain that Postmodernists regard art and aesthetics are too significant to be isolated from life. (Postmodern Pluralism, unit reading)

 

We are living in 21st century and artworld is constantly evolving according to the change of time, society, and culture. In VCE Art, students will study theory in art across Unit 1 to 4 and analyse artworks using Analytical Frameworks. Those theoretical studies are to inspire and support students' artmaking and should be relevant. 

 

For example, I inserted Sandra Selig's BE SOME OTHER MATERIAL (2011) as an example of contemporary art, first of all, because she is Australian artist contributing nation's art culture and, second of all, she used installation of moving lights and music to create the mood of rhythmical movement with a great theme. Through investigation of this artwork, students will explore new materials and techniques in contemporary artmaking. 

 

Analytical Frameworks in VCE Art is matching with Erickson and Clover's five viewpoints at some extent, especially in Unit 3 and 4, students will be introduced Contemporary Framework, which sees artworld through plural viewpoint. 

 

The Contemporary Framework is used to examine an artwork, irrespective of when it was created, in the context of contemporary art ideas and issues. By comparing artworks made before 1970 and after, students will learn how have contemporary art ideas and issues challenged traditional understandings of artworks and their significance. By inquring how might artworks of the past take on new or different meanings, in the context of contemporary ideas and issues, studets will be able to ebmreace different point of view. 

 

Moreover, by investigating the choice or presentation of subject matter or medium, materials and techniques in contemporary art, students will be inspired for their own artmaking, reflecting and challenging artistic or social traditions. 

 

 

 

 

I have made those five questions as critical inquiries students can ask themselves in investigate: 

(Specified justification of each question is annotated in sample of answer sheet)

 

 

1. How has the form of artwork been changed since pre-historic time to now depicting rhythmical movement? Does art have the limit in terms of representing ‘invisible’ such as rhythm? Support your opinion using formal framework and analyzing those two artworks. 

 

2. What are the significant characteristics of this painting? What relationship Japanese art and Western art had around the time this painting was made? Analyse the artwork using Formal and Cultural Framework and response.

 

3. Freud stressed that art experience allows primitive fantasies to escape repression, at least

in part, and thus attain a symbolic satisfaction. Do you agree with this? Explain with at least one of the artwork based on your personal experiences and Formal and Personal Framework.

 

4. Nam-June Paik is called the pioneer of video art. Why he chose television as a main medium of his artworks and how does it related to the era he lived? How did it influence video/ digital art now? Compare and contrast with Sandra Selig’s installation. 

 

5. Paul Klee, Namjun Paik, Sandra Selig, all of them performed and had special relationship to music as well as art. Do you think music and visual art can have a certain relationship? If so, how do you think they are related to each other? If not, why? Compare and contrast at least one artwork with the other.

 

 

 

 

Critical Inqury

 

I want to look at the concepts proposed by Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan for effective understanding artistic activity rather than as art therapy. Number of their ideas have become part of our theoretical speculations on art education and psychoanalysis. As we are living in visual culture, art education continues at present to be heavily influenced by both psychological and psychoanalytic ways of thinking.

 

Freud and Lacan resorted to language to interpret the mental and emotional activity of individuals. For both authors, language is a fundamental axis and meth-odological tool of clinical work. Indeed, language and semantics are at the heart of the conceptual analyses of both authors.

 

Language is also important in the context of contemporary art and art education. The influence of Freud and Lacan’s work for understanding contemporary culture has gone beyond psychoanalytic circles into cultural studies and art criticism.

 

The conceptual apparatuses presented by Freud and Lacan have enhanced critical reflection in various areas of knowledge and have been influenced by research in scientific psychology. The unconscious psycho-logical processes described by Freud were, from the beginning, subjected to the psychic dimension of language, as well as to the points of support on which this dimension is sustained through transference; that is, the moment when the subject communicates with the other subject.

 

Lacan (1966) also stressed the centrality of language in its relationship with the unconscious when he said the dream has the structure of a sentence or of an enigma. The unconscious emerges, for both authors, structured as language. The value of Lacan’s attention to Freudian theory rests in his desire to research the unconscious through language. 

 

Also the concepts of Lacan are important for understanding of current directions in contemporary art education, especially within the context of the post-structural paradigm. 

He asserted that the appreciation of art, can be understood only in the psychodynamics of the subject himself in the acts of art creation and perception. Psychoanalysis as a practice has its central focus the unresolved issues related to identity and/or social relationships; i.e.Oedipus complex. 

 

Lacan’s psychoanalytic approach has been important in the field of cultural studies and in the concomitant lapidary evocation of fundamental references to structuralism, Ferdinand de Saussure’s linguistics, and Hegel’s philosophy.

 

The discourses and practices of art education should be understood not as natural productions but as ideological productions. In this sense, the contribution of psychoanalysis to education and the arts is essential because it is based on a way of understanding human development that goes beyond the directly observable material. In doing so, it centers its attention on the individual, the producer of sense and meaning. Psychoanalysis privileges, in any of its approaches, the notion of structure rather than that of development and, by emphasizing human singularity, it stresses differences rather than similarities. 

 

 

Art Criticism was originally introduced into the literature of art education as a mode of inquiry for helping students understand and appreciate works of art. ​Critics historically have sought to understand works of art and assess their worth or merit. They also try to look at artworks as reflections of larger cultural ideas or manifestations of aesthetic comprehension.

 

However, works of art are inherently problematic because they can be understood in different ways. Educators tend to make mistakes in finding critical inquiries; misread the artworks becasue they have little expertised or underlie ambiquities in the philosophical literature.  

 

Feldman's model in citicism is in a linear fashion; students criticise by desctibing, then analysing, interpreting, and evaluating. Dewey(1993,1938) proposed a five- stage schema of the inquiry process which is intended to cover problem solving in everyday life as well as the disciplined inquiry that occurs in professional fields of investigation; A problematic situation, Articulation of the problem, Hypothesis suggestion, Deduction of consequences, and Testing of hypothesis.

 

In actual critical inquiry, the findings of critics are subjected to the scrutiny of an interested audiences. The interpretations and judgments reached are not only evauated by artists and other critics, but become the basis for interpreting and evaluating other works of art.

 

Through reading art critics and and criticise by themselves in especially unit 4 area of Study 1 Discussing and debating art, students will develop personal points of view and informed opinions about art ideas or issues and support them with evidence. Also they will broaden their sight of looking at things surrounded them ciritically, albe to read metaphor using pluralism. This is lead to their artmaking, those cognitive background will help students to develop a theme or subject matter with informed and critical thinking skill. 

 

 

 

 

Click each of image to get each artwork's to get contextual information about the significance of each artwork to the culture and time of its production and its influence within art history.