Last week we introduced Shannah Burton and Linda Churchwell-Vega from the New City School in St. Louis, Missouri. This week, in the second installment of Art21 Educators introductions, we bring you Tricia Fitzpatrick and Don Ball, our first participants from Canada!

Tricia and Don teach 9-12th grade students at Cawthra Park Secondary School in Mississauga, Ontario, home to a regional arts program. The two had been working at the same school for over a year when they were each asked to attend a summer workshop for teachers. They quickly realized that they had similar approaches to education–valuing creative thinking, experiential learning, and the intersections between art and science. In a system that compartmentalizes learning, Tricia and Don think more holistically.

Over the past ten years, Tricia and Don have been developing and implementing a cross-curricular, international, Visual Arts and Science travel program. It began with a goal to show students how visual art and science are connected both here at home, and in cultures far away. Tricia and Don have traveled with students to Costa Rica (2003, 2005), Ecuador (2007, 2009), and Peru (2011), to experience the art and science of Central and South America through home-stay cultural exchanges (living with Spanish speaking families and working in the community), visits to contemporary art galleries and historical museums, and the exploration of diverse ecosystems. Additionally, their students have learned to appreciate the value of responsible travel.

Don, who is the art teacher, introduced Tricia, the science teacher, to Art21 a number of years ago. Tricia told us:

“…I have come to see contemporary art as a lens through which you can see the world as well as a tool by which artists communicate their ideas about the world. It is fluid and broad–it is more than just the art of our time, it is the art of expressing ideas, emotion, values, view points on the events and issues that frame our experience of the world around us.

I also believe contemporary art can be a tool for students to use to express their ideas and to investigate their surroundings. Like science, my own field, contemporary art makes observations, asks questions and looks for possible answers. It tests its subjects and its audience. It invites participation, not passive viewing. Contemporary art has a place in most classrooms. I want to explore how I can help students step outside the traditional lab report and written paper to express their understanding and questions about the science around them.”

Tricia and Don will continue to work together during the 2012-2013 school year as part of the Art21 Educators program. We are curious to see how Art21 will influence their curricula and cultural exchange programs!

* This post was written with Dana Helwick, Art21 Educators Intern.

"Year Four Art21 Educators: Don Ball and Tricia Fitzpatrick" originally appeared on the Art21 Blog

Subscribe to Art21 for mobile on Google Currents

Ai Weiwei, Surveillance Camera, 2006. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Last week I presented a Season 6 Access screening of the Change episode featuring Catherine Opie, El Anatsui and Ai Weiwei. During the screening I made some notes to share when it comes to ideas for teaching with this particular hour…

First, what kinds of change are illustrated in this episode? Some of the art featured calls for different kinds of change and other works shed a light on changes occurring around us. Which works in this episode specifically engage with the theme? Which works ask the viewer to consider a specific kind of change?

Second, how does each of the three artists document the transformation and change of physical materials, places, and even ways of thinking? How does each artist work with transformation and change in multiple ways and how does collaboration affect the art created?

Finally, what kinds of things can students experience and learn from working with this episode? Possibilities include:

• Investigating how different artists document and perhaps provoke change.
• Exploring a single theme by engaging with diverse media and materials (and this goes for each Art21 episode- all twenty four of them).
• Engaging communities-small and large- as collaborators and subjects.
• Experiencing diverse approaches to storytelling.
• Enabling conversations that include topics we sometimes avoid talking about, such as how we perceive (not to mention treat) people who don’t look like we do or the role of surveillance in our lives.

If you missed the Change episode last month you can view it here as well as download the educators’ guide in a simple PDF file.

Until next week. Spring is here.

"Teaching with Change" originally appeared on the Art21 Blog

Subscribe to Art21 for mobile on Google Currents

Art21 Educators is both an intimate network of teachers and a year-long professional development initiative focused on leveraging Art21’s films and curricular resources to enhance teaching practice. The program brings together teachers from across the country representing a wide range of subject areas and grade levels. Over the course of a year together we develop our knowledge of contemporary art, artists and ideas, and to use this knowledge to support dynamic teaching and learning in the classroom.

As we embark on our fourth year of the program, we are excited to introduce our exceptional new group of educators. Hailing from St. Louis, MO; Minneapolis, MN; Carlinville, IL; Murfreesboro, TN; New York, NY; Seattle, WA; Cambridge, MA; and Ontario, Canada, these teachers will meet for the first time this July for a seven-day institute in New York City, and will then continue working together virtually throughout the academic year.

Congratulations to the 2012-2013 cohort!

To get started, we’d like to introduce Shannah Burton and Linda Churchwell-Varga:

The New City School is an independent elementary school in St. Louis, Missouri serving grades K-8. This year, their Studio Art teacher Shannah Burton and veteran Language Arts/Social Studies teacher Linda Churchwell-Varga decided to team up and apply for the Art21 Educators program.

What struck us about Shannah’s application was her commitment to broadening the definitions of art for her students and making connections to diverse and socially relevant models for artistic practice. Shannah says,

“Art history in elementary art education is often limited to Picasso, Van Gogh, Kandinsky, etc. I want my girls and my young artists of color to be able to see themselves reflected in the faces of the artists we study. I want them to be inspired by authentic questions about our world that contemporary artists are taking on right now. I want to be able to engage my students in art that is of their time. In teaching contemporary art I intend to promote:

Diversity and multiculturalism
Relevant social constructions
Models of how artists work in their profession
Community art galleries and museums
Creativity and critical thinking
Innovative uses of technology in art”

On top of that, Shannah’s students obviously love her and what they can do in her art room:

Shannah’s partner Linda has been a Language Arts/Social Studies teacher for over 20 years, 15 of them at New City School. Linda told us about her interest in connecting literature and visual art through symbolism:

“My goal is to continue working with students to move beyond a literal understanding of what they read, visually and linguistically, to enhance their reading comprehension through a better understanding of symbolism. My desire is for them to become better readers and writers, who understand, appreciate more and are able to write with a greater level of depth. In pursuit of this goal, I would like to learn more about art in general, contemporary art specifically. Much of what we choose to read in sixth grade deliberately includes an array of diverse characters. In what I know of contemporary art, it seems to me that the diversity it reflects, in both artists and themes, complements our curriculum.”

Linda also told us about the culture of the New City School and why she loves to teach there:

We are looking forward to meeting Linda and Shannah this summer and hearing more about their classrooms, teaching experiences, and ideas on art. Please join Art21 in welcoming them to Art21 Educators and check back during the next seven weeks as we present the rest of the new group!

* This post was written with Dana Helwick, Art21 Educators Intern.

"Announcing the New Teachers for Year Four of Art21 Educators" originally appeared on the Art21 Blog

Subscribe to Art21 for mobile on Google Currents

First, the new guide has a lot of the same great introductory features from previous seasons. You get to learn about Art21 and the philosophy behind the organization of the guide in the first three pages. Simple, straight up and to the point.

Also within the introduction, on pages 4 and 5, there is a short description titled “What Is Contemporary Art?” and ideas for utilizing contemporary art in the classroom and community.

Each of the Season 6 programs is organized around a theme and all four themes, along with the artists featured, are described in the thematic introductions. A broad overview of the theme is presented in addition to introducing the artists with some foundational discussion questions.

Then, beginning with Marina Abramović’s page, each artist is given the star treatment complete with information about the artist, questions to share before, while, and after viewing, along with suggestions for creating different kinds of work in response to the segment.

It’s hard for me to have “favorites” because I wrote our new educator guide with the blessed help of my colleagues Jessica Hamlin and Flossie Chua. But when I reflect on the artists featured this season I just know I’ll be using artists like Ai Weiwei, El Anatsui, David Altmejd, Glenn Ligon, Catherine Opie, Rackstraw Downes, Tabaimo and Sarah Sze in the classroom… probably sooner than later. I think about how artists like Ai Weiwei and Tabaimo can broaden student understanding of what an artist does. I think about sharing the passion David Altmejd and Rackstraw Downes have for their work. I think about the way Catherine Opie and Sarah Sze speak to what students already know about their world.

I sincerely hope you get the chance to spend some time with the new guide and episodes from our new season. Once you have, please let me know your thoughts here on the blog or e-mail me at joe@art21.org

Many thanks! See you next week.

"Test Driving the New Season 6 Educators’ Guide" originally appeared on the Art21 Blog

Subscribe to Art21 for mobile on Google Currents

Celebrating persistence... Image: bleachereport.com

Knowing full well that the New York Rangers can be out of the playoffs before I read this Sunday’s paper…. and at the same time anything can happen…. it’s probably a perfect moment for our semi-annual hockey post that highlights some bizarre (or perhaps, pertinent?) parallel between the New York Rangers and teaching with contemporary art. This post is devoted to persistence.

At the start of the school year I was assigned a class to teach that was, well, let’s just say they weren’t exactly ready for prime time. The group as a whole had so many challenging personalities (not to mention personalities that would challenge you) that more than once since September I have thought about skipping the my exit off the highway and just driving until I ran out of gas instead of going to school. It took three quarters of the year to develop a relationship with this group and last week, after the blood, sweat and tears of 140 classes……… I got to share Glenn Ligon’s season 6 segment.

It’s not that Glenn Ligon was some magic elixir, even though it’s one of my favorite from the current season. The curricular stars were aligned and it just seemed like the right time to enhance what I was teaching (a unit investigating the ways artists are influenced by and “picture” literature) with Ligon’s segment. I felt confident that the students could and would dig deep into the some of the Before Viewing and While Viewing questions that are part of our snazzy new season 6 educator’s guide which, by the way, you can download here as a free PDF file.

What I realized as we got into this particular unit, as well as recent units of study about what makes non-objective and non-representational art works of art in the first place, was that there was a level of trust, risk-taking and questioning happening that just wasn’t going on in the first semester. Persistence and patience was paying off. Students were asking better questions, respecting one another a little more (still not as much as I’d like) and thinking more broadly about what was possible in their work. They had recently been given less restriction related to media and the size of work they could make. Even more emphasis was being placed on choosing media and making work that specifically served their ideas.

Persistence has certainly been paying off for the Rangers, too. More than once over the past two weeks they have been on the brink of losing a big game or being flat out eliminated from the playoffs but the team has rebounded beautifully to stay alive. With Monday’s win they assured all of us they won’t be on the golf course at least through the coming weekend. And it’s the same way at school. The good lessons, discussions and risk-taking with this particular group keep leading to another level of interest and engagement. When these conditions exist, teaching with contemporary art is less of a struggle and more of an experience that broadens the curriculum.

"Persistence and Patience Paying Off" originally appeared on the Art21 Blog

Subscribe to Art21 for mobile on Google Currents

The four Marx Bros... Image: noodleinahaystack.blogspot.com

No sooner are we celebrating our upcoming fourth year with Art21 Educators as I am reminded that the Teaching with Contemporary Art column also turns four this week. Looks like I’ll be playing the fourth horse in the fourth race this weekend…

Last year I celebrated by looking back over the first three years but today I’d like to just look back over the past twelve months because, well, it’s been quite a ride. Here are some of the highlights since last spring:

The post Installation in Installments took a look into one approach for working with site-specific work in a school. Emphasis is placed on (realistic) planning and organization as the necessary steps for creating high quality work.

Using Art21 Video Exclusives allowed readers a glimpse into how educators can curate films from the Art21 series and use them to teach thematically.

Last summer, a post called Three Ways of Seeing explored some of the ways people go about looking at and, hopefully, understanding contemporary art. Shows by Nancy Grossman, Ryan Trecartin and Laurel Nakadate at PS 1 were happily used for my little experiment.

TwCA’s first post about our new online video series, New York Close Up, was all about Lucas Blalock’s beautiful still lifes that utilize objects exclusively found in discount stores. These photos continue to make me look again.

Last September I had the opportunity to talk with Adam Weiler of the amazing Michigan after-school-super-group, Ambrose. If you haven’t yet checked out their work, please, it’s time.

The post titled Taking the Long Way Home: Working with a Theme in a Series focused on sharing experiences asking students to investigate a theme over a period of time.

Interdisciplinary is Not a One-Way Street took a look into the stereotypes associated with asking art educators to “help” teach other subjects as well as attempting to illustrate what the “inter” of interdisciplinary really means. The follow-up post used Mark Dion’s Neukom Vivarium as an example.

How Much Is That? took on one of the most popular questions in the art classroom and Occupy This considered teaching about inequality in the classroom.

As we turned the corner on a new year Working with Memory discussed how to get students to incorporate specifics from their own history into works of art. Teaching with Contemporary Art in the Elementary Classroom took a look into how two of our Art21 Educators, Maureen Hergott and Julia CopperSmith, have begun to get away from step-by step projects and into using video documentation more often.

February offered a chance to talk with Janine Antoni a second time and both part one and part two of that interview is ready for your reading pleasure.

Finally, Balancing Skill-Building and the Formation of Ideas took on popular questions from the recent NAEA annual conference while Sexy and I Know It shared some parallels between Jimmy Fallon’s approach to performing and the ways artists use juxtaposition in order to make us pay a different kind of attention.

Like I said a few weeks ago… It’s hard to believe it’s been four years, but it has, and this past year has been a strange and spectacular one. Thanks to all of you for reading and for your ongoing support!

"Teaching with Contemporary Art Turns Four" originally appeared on the Art21 Blog

Subscribe to Art21 for mobile on Google Currents

Zoe Strauss, "Mattress Flip", 2001. Image: pdnphotooftheday.com

Every once in a blue moon you get surprised by an exhibit that takes your breath away. Kiki Smith did it to me in 2006 and last year Glenn Ligon did exactly the same.

But last week I had the chance to catch Zoe Strauss’ exhibit, “Ten Years”, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and there I was walking around in circles, revisiting works multiple times, looking into details I missed on the first and second go-round. Is it a coincidence that Strauss’ 2008 book, America, just happens to hold the same title as the Glenn Ligon show from last year? I wonder.

This mid-career retrospective was epic, not in breadth or scale, but in the quality of composition and the framing of content. Strauss, who as an untrained photographer explores “the most disenfranchised people and places” through photographs that share a “poignant, troubling portrait of contemporary America,” literally exhibited annually in a space under I-95 in South Philadelphia from 2001-2010. She plastered the walls of the space with her work, gave visitors a guide to the show and made herself available to sign prints for $5 each. And while she was included in the Whitney Biennial in 2006 I think moving from an I-95 underpass to the Philadelphia Museum in about ten years isn’t half bad.

In her recent show, which closed on April 22^nd, Strauss gave us lots to chew on. Whether gazing into her portraits of strangers, picking through photos of cityscapes and skylines, or laughing out loud at her precisely composed pictures of signs and text, Strauss most certainly attained her goal of creating a “narrative that reflects the beauty and struggle of everyday life”. One look at “Mattress Flip” (2001) or “Ken and Don, Las Vegas” (2007) will attest to this. Her photos are somber and simultaneously joyful. The way she frames her subjects keep us coming back for more and quite frankly, she doesn’t need to print the photographs larger than life to get her point across. Many works, at 12 by 18 inches, are plenty big without needing a team of handlers and a forklift.

Teachers who want utilize Strauss’ work in the classroom will find that she can be a huge inspiration to students who want to chronicle their own place and time, much like LaToya Ruby Frazier. But unlike Frazier, Strauss often works with strangers and has photographed other parts of the country, such as Biloxi, Mississippi and Camden, New Jersey, to shoot the personalities and landscape of similarly struggling towns and neighborhoods.

I kept hearing nervous laughter while visiting the show. Were people laughing at the work? Were they laughing because they recognized some of the local storefronts Strauss pictured? Or was that nervous laughter because many people somehow saw themselves in these moments of peace and distress?

Please take a look at the slideshow that accompanies the narrative of the Strauss retrospective and share any ideas you may have for working with her photography in (and out) of the classroom.

"Ten Years…… Right Between the Eyes: Zoe Strauss at the Philadelphia Museum" originally appeared on the Art21 Blog

Subscribe to Art21 for mobile on Google Currents

My thesis is due in two weeks, so let’s keep this short. April has been a kicking month for the New Aesthetic – a term so nascent I feel like it’s redefined after each new blog post on it. And there has been a whole lot written this past month thanks to a SXSW panel that brought it to the attention of those beyond the tech art cognoscenti. As a student of ITP, I find it interesting that my work is almost immediately categorized as New Aesthetic. But also that a number of works by classmates and alums of my program are being used to define the movement.

Adam Harvey (ITP 2010). CV Dazzle.

My take on what the New Aesthetic is: we are beginning to live in a world where our machines are learning to see, to hear, and to think, but not quite in the way that we humans see, hear or think. Our growing reliance on these technologies have forced us to empathize with these computational devices. Pixelization, the loading icon, and the blue screen of death–visual anomalies created by computers that don’t happen in our reality –are recognizable and understood because we have become comfortable with how computers process the world. While fifty years ago the public saw the Earth from space via satellite for the first time, this view of our planet from above has become the norm thanks to mapping technologies like GPS and Google maps.

Matthew Rader (ITP 2012). Megabytes of Spring, Reed+Rader for vmagazine.com.

Some artists, architects and writers have taken advantage of our newfound confusion to either further blur the line between the digital and real or to call attention to it. There is a whole tumblr devoted to New Aesthetic sightings. But one thing that strikes me is how mostly unaware people are when they create something which could be considered New Aesthetic. People are creating things with the tools at their disposal, and it just so happens that those tools, either by limits or by convenience, develop things of a certain aesthetic. Russell Davies points it out best: impressionism was partly due to the invention of paint in tubes. So what is being created now that we live in the age of the convenience of control-c and the limits of graphic cards?

–Physical Gif by Greg Borenstein (ITP 2011) and Scott Wayne Indiana (ITP 2011).

There has been plenty written about this in the last month, especially by Bruce Sterling. If you’re interested in this topic, I urge you to read James Bridle’s blog post as a primer. There has been some harsh criticism of the idea that this art movement even exists, and some interesting responses from some of my ITP colleagues. But, like I mentioned before, my thesis is due in 2 weeks. I skimmed the majority of these articles with a monkey on my back. One which I have to attend to. Right now!

"Open Enrollment | The New Aesthetic" originally appeared on the Art21 Blog

Subscribe to Art21 for mobile on Google Currents

Recently we announced our new year 4 cohort and this week I am pleased to share this list of amazing educators with you. We had many excellent applicants and appreciate the effort that everyone made putting their applications together!

Our Art21 Educators for 2012-2013 include:

• Linda Churchwell-Vega from St. Louis, MO and Shannah Burton from Belleville, IL. Both are K-8 teachers. Linda teaches Language Arts and Shannah teaches Studio Art.
• Tricia Fitzpatrick and Don Ball from Mississauga, Ontario, Canada (that’s right, Canada!). Tricia is a high school Science teacher and Don teaches Studio Art.
• Craig Newsom from Carlinville, IL and Carl Anderson from Minneapolis, MN. Craig is our first Art21 Educator that teaches on the undergrad level and Carl teaches middle and high school Language Arts.
• Caitlin Miller and Matthew Garza from New York City who both teach special education students at their school. Caitlin is an Art and Computers teacher while Matthew is an assistant teacher for Art and Music.
• Catherine Karp from Pepperell, MA and Cheryl Vernick from Cambridge, MA. Both teach K-8 Studio Art.
• Dillon Paul from Canarsie, NY and Angela Larsen from Seattle WA. Both teach Studio Art- Dillon with high school students and Angela with middle school.
• Dennis Greenwell and Salem Robert Limpert from Murfreesboro, TN. Dennis is a  high school Studio Art & English teacher while Salem Robert teaches Language Arts.
• Marni Rabinowitz and Hugo Rojas from New York City. Marni teaches high school Art and Hugo teaches Reading and Spanish.

A big welcome to our new group! We are excited to have you join us this summer in NYC and are even more excited to work with you over the next year…

"Year 4 Art21 Educators Announced!" originally appeared on the Art21 Blog

Subscribe to Art21 for mobile on Google Currents

Robert Adams, "Adams County, Colorado," 1973 Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Matthew Marks Gallery, New York

The LA Times’ Leah Ollman hit it on the head last month when she wrote in Art in America:

To embrace opposing emotions can yield frictional sparks and wonderfully uneasy tension; it can complicate and deepen the response a work generates.

Ollman was discussing the work of Robert Adams in her excellent article, Romantic Realist, as well as the current retrospective, “Robert Adams: The Place We Live” at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. While Adams himself may admit to being in pursuit of beauty through his photography, his work clearly highlights, “…where and how nature and culture meet”- for better or worse.

Teaching with and sharing Adams’ photography with students can allow for a broader understanding of what makes a great picture. Do we look for precise technical qualities, superb composition and a story the viewer can take away, or do we allow for ambiguity and multiple story lines in photos that simultaneously transport the viewer and force them to hold up a mirror? Adams talks about telling the truth and having to “simultaneously accept what one had to accept” during the Exclusive video, “Robert Adams: Working Along Freeways”. His photo of a garbage truck, while inducing “revulsion” in Adams’ words, is beautiful at the same time. His photo of a young girl walking through a huge trailer court evokes loneliness and sadness while depicting an extraordinary light and landscape.

In Art21’s season 4 educator guide, one of the activities suggested after viewing Robert Adams’ segment asks students to create a visual essay of their own region using books, newspaper and magazine articles, the internet, and interviews with teachers, neighbors… even family members. Through the process of gathering these kinds of images, there is an opportunity for students to see the parallels of beauty and ugliness in change. Working with Adams’ photos, students can further their understanding of how ambiguity, ambivalence and uncertainty play a role in making works of art that affect the viewer on multiple levels and push the definition of what can be beautiful, not to mention illuminating.

"Ambiguity and Teaching with the Photography Robert Adams" originally appeared on the Art21 Blog

Subscribe to Art21 for mobile on Google Currents