Multicultural Arts School

Ok so I went to the Multicultural Arts School yesterday and am still excited from being in that space. The halls are lively with framed prints lining the lockers, the classrooms are beautiful with paintings on the walls and awesome posters and more prints, the teachers seem to be totally committed and all there. AWESOME. However the one thing that I haven't been able to get over--- the book shelves. I was in a social studies classroom and they had many of their class books on the shelves- you know how the teacher has like 25 copies of a book and keeps them in the class until you read them and then you get to have one copy and then return it. Ok so that was the setup and there were some of the titles:

Yes, Yes, Y'all- Oral History of Hip Hop's First Decade
World Changing- A Users Guide for the 21st Century
Crossing the Blvd.
Malcolm X, A Graphic Novel
Beginners Guide to Community Based Arts
The Big Book of Racism
Nat Turner, A Graphic Novel
Our America- Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago
What is the What (Dave Eggers)

These are some cool books! I have ordered all of them through the library so I'll have more to say on that soon. The one thing I keep stumbling on is the idea of reading about important historical figures (Malcolm X and Nat Turner) through a graphic novel. Now I want to preface this by saying again how cool I think this is, but I then get caught on the traditional side of me- I mean what about reading the original writings of these famous people? What about the traditional biographies or autobiographies- shouldn't those be read? Will a graphic novel convey all that we get when we read thoroughly the academic writing on the great people of our nations history? I want to know more! I want to see these teens respond to reading a graphic novel- I'm sure its an amazing learning experience, I'm sure they must love it. But perhaps more so I want to know if the lasting lesson is: wow reading about Nat Turner in this graphic novel made me see how interesting his story is, I should read more (insert traditional biography here).

Copycat?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/17/arts/design/17frieze.html?ref=arts

So I was reading this article in the New York Times today and along with the review of this art fair there was a particular bit on this one artist who is re-creating mini versions of Jeff Koons' balloon dogs. I believe the direct quote is, "I’m making a copy of a copy”. Now that is funny to me, I think that it is in interesting idea and I am totally on board. Koons' balloon dogs were hands down my favorite pieces in his Chicago exhibition last year and further I saw a photograph of one of his balloon dogs being shown in Versailles which was one of my favorite images of contemporary art. People get so mad sometimes that Koons' pieces can be reproduced, that the same pieces can be showing in exhibitions across the country or world at the same time. I think its interesting- he really puts it in our face to consider why we crave the special nature of an original when we live our lives surrounded by reproductions, embracing reproductions. I find that the reason Koons' work is so strong is because his pieces are impeccably made- I spent many a day trying to find a flaw on his balloon dog and let me tell you I came up with nothing. Now I know that he has a whole team of studio assistants and lets be honest he probably has little to do with production but I like to think that he is the one who demands , the stunning perfection of his pieces are absolutely part of his work. Therefore I was all excited that this artist in this NY Times article was throwing all of this back in his face, in our face as consumers, etc., even talking about how these mini versions of other famous works are a popular item to buy- just like our obsession with souvenir ships. All of this was incredibly funny to me until I saw the image of these balloon dog reproductions!
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/10/16/arts/20091017-frieze-slideshow_7.html

Ok so those are the molds and then they are dipped to make the final piece but those aren't perfect, those don't have the same sensibility of Koons' work- if you are making "a copy of a copy" you have to really copy it otherwise it completely falls short. The way that we look at copying is so widespread these days with plagiarism in academia, the music industry download situation, bootleg movies, etc. This article makes me want to look closer at what it means to copy because this artists work is so not copying but it is claiming to be. What does it really mean 'to copy'?

Stupid people shouldn't breed

So Holzer is back at the MCA! There is a small exhibition of 4 artists and Holzer is one of them. Now I personally LOVE her work and am so thrilled that she has a presence in the institution once again. The striking thing though is that after her work was so dramatically presented in darkened galleries last year in her solo exhibition I was struck today when I saw two of her LED pieces in starkly lit rooms. This made me think about our reliance on predicable built environments which I know Gillick and Deller are exploring in very different yet intentional ways.* But this moment of first encountering Holzer after last seeing her work for months in the dim galleries of yesteryear the concept of environmental impact was stronger than ever. The LED lights scrolling her startling and ever-interesting truisms felt less magical and more real. There was less beauty in the honesty and/or boldness of her truisms- and instead of feeling of "well shit, she's kinda right about that one too". I am still in complete awe of her work after seeing her Protect, protect exhibition last year but why am I so distressed without the dark environment that felt like it offered me a safe zone, a cradle, holding me while I explored her work...I thought I was stronger than this.

Politics/art/thinking= lots to think about

I attended the Columbia College Teaching Artist Conference last week and during a panel discussion one of the questions was, “Do you see your work as a teaching artist as inherently political?” Now wait a moment, maybe consider your thoughts……… ok so the first answer to this question by one of the panel speakers was: “Everything you do in this field has political implications.” Interesting response, loaded response. This was then elaborated on, “politics want the status quo, art disrupts that”. I share that thought because how amazing and eloquent is that!! A solid yet expanding definintion of what it is that we do as teaching artists, as artists. What I was thinking about in relation to this was in connection with some of the challenges that President Obama encountered when he was our democratic candidate last year. The whole Ayers situation raised so many interesting realities of our now hyper connected society that we live in. Now that everything that we do is recorded, noted, catalogued young people growing up have a hightened awareness of how their choices have implications that could be held against them in the future. I recall last year a conversation in another class when someone was working to get signatures for planned parenthood support and a high school student said they do support pro-choice organizations but that they cannot put their name down on a paper because they are interested in a career in politics and they know that a signature like that would marry them to this cause. Wow! Now I think that we do need to work on fostering a greater sense of accountability for our actions from youth straight into adulthood, but I find that there is also a sadness to the thought process of this high school student in the planned parenthood situation. If youth cannot feel like they can explore and support, change and amend their values and beliefs as they grow as people then geez that’s a whole lot of pressure! Now getting back to this idea that “politics want status quo and art distrupts that”- I know there is a connection here but I’m struggling to make it. Perhaps what I’m trying to get at is: if one identifies as an artist, people seem to have a more understanding view of why someone might explore their political views in their work. Why are we looking at artists differently than this high school student- why can’t he explore his political views by signing that petition or other petitions that he believes in at this point in his life, its where he is right now...

Interesting

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/business/media/06adco.html?_r=1

5th grade boys are funny

Funny line today at work
I was about to take a group of 5th grade boys into the painting exhibition and one of the boys said:


"Painting! Boring! I mean you dip a paintbrush in some paint, paint a donkey on some paper, and done. Whats the big deal?!??"


Hahahahaha. He actually ended up really liking the exhibition. And I still can't figure out where the donkey part came from.

So as my thesis work progresses I am beginning to feel like I am studying this one topic and this one topic only. Now I'm not saying that this is a boring practice- rather that I LOVE being this invested in one specific area but I am feeling a bit selfish almost. It seems that I have always found great value in not being too focused on one area, always valuing the open minded approach to learning- that you can learn about a million topics in any given day and that is so exciting. However here with this thesis study I really am looking with a microscopic lense at my ONE topic. It literally is painful for me, and almost feels wrong, that I print off articles to read and then I notice its not on my topic so I don't read them. What is going on! I know that I get to be this specialized in my interests this year because that is how to write a comprehensive study of this topic- it is my job and my privilege to slow down from the fanatic pace of education and study in depth this topic. I feel that this is an appropriate time to be learning in such a specialized way but I feel fortunate that I didn't get too specialized earlier in my education. I was always glad that I wasn't a kid who picked one activity and only did that activity- or in college going to a liberal arts school allowed me to not have to pick one discipline until well into my 2nd year. That model worked well for me. But now with this thesis project I am starting to see great value in a specified study and I'm going to attempt to relate that thinking to other areas of life:
Is there immense value in buckling down to one activity or discipline and excelling there versus learning through doing many?
Was my experience "just exploring and doing whichever activity seemed interesting that day/year" a kind of hodge-podge approach to finding my interests?