connections and contradictions for parramatta ceo
TRANSCRIPT
Connections and Contradictions: Teaching Critical Writing with Chinese Contemporary Art
Luise Guest March 2015
THE PARADIGMLinking the practice of the artist, and student experiences of art making, with the practices of the Art Historian and Art Critic, whilst building literacy skills and confidence
It’s ALL connected!
''UNTITLED (MARILYN/MAO)'' BY YU YOUHAN
“A JOURNEY OF PRACTICE” (DENNIS ATKINSON)
Art History and Art Criticism – how can students become immersed in these practices? How can they respond in writing to their encounters with artworks?
Promoting curiosity, excitement, confidence,
wonder and delight
Authentic, exciting, fully engaged student artwriting? How do we empower our students to DO that?
THE PROBLEM…Students are excited and engaged by art making; many are much less so by reading and writing…..
What I want for my students…
• That they get as excited about and engaged with art writing as they are about artmaking
• That each one of them can surprise themselves with the level of their achievement
• That they leave my class with a desire to know more about art – especially contemporary art
• That they respond authentically to artworks
• So – it all starts with the work itself
Why use Chinese art?
Because it….• Excites their curiosity• Provokes them• Makes them THINK• Pushes them out of their comfort zone• Engages them in learning some important history
– and some geopolitics• Links their study of art with the real world – right
here, right now!• Inspires their own art making
Wan Liya, in Two Cities Gallery, M50, Shanghai ,photograph Luise Guest
Past and Present – Connections and Contradictions
“Just what is it that makes contemporary Chinese art so different, so appealing?”
• After 30 years of Soviet Socialist Realism under Mao, artists in the 1980s discovered Modernism and Postmodernism all at once
• Influences range from Duchamp to Beuys, Rauschenberg to Warhol
• The Sensation Exhibition had a major impact, according to uber-curator, Pi Li
• Extraordinary power-house art academies
• Cheap labour and fabrication costs
The Luo Brothers – tradition goes Pop
These things add up to….
Art like nothing else in the world right now!
Finding the “hook”!
It begins with an encounter… real or virtual
Students encounter Song Dong, ‘Waste Not’ installation at Carriageworks 2013
SOME SOLUTIONS AND TACTICS
First: Finding the “hook” – and baiting it!
An invitation to ask “What if?” “How?” and “Why?”
Speculation and Wonder
What is pulling this train carriage?
Why do you say that?
If YOU were the artist, what would you have as the engine?
Why do you say that?
What other artworks do we know of who might work in this way?
Why a train? Why a fish?
We don’t start with information – we start
with the artwork!
What did Huang Yong Ping Do?
A replica of Mao Zedong’s private railway carriageA fibreglass giant carp head – why?Stuffed (taxidermied) animals of all kinds – what could they symbolise?A tiger with its head inside the carp and its body inside the carriage – why?A title: “Leviathanation” – what could that possibly mean?
More works by Huang Yong Ping
And back in the ‘80s?
Huang Yong Ping was the founding member of ‘Xiamen Dada’ after he brought some books on Duchamp into China in the late 70s. This work is “A History of Chinese Art and a History of Western Art Washed in the Washing Machine for 2 Minutes”
What would an artwork made from 60,000 bottles of Coca-Cola Look like?
• Speculate, wonder, guess, draw it, debate –give reasons!
• Have other artists used the symbol of Coca-Cola in their work? Who? Why?
Here it is!
Well, THAT’S unexpected!
He Xiangyu, Cola Project, 2009, remains of 135,000 litres of coca-cola
But wait, there’s more!
And more….
Could you ‘draw’ with fireworks?
• Speculate and wonder – what would such a drawing look like and how could you do it?
• Why might a Chinese artist wish to do such a thing?
• What could fireworks and gunpowder symbolise?
Vortex 2006, Gunpowder on paper, 400 x 900 cm, Collection of Deutsche Bank Collection, commissioned by Deutsche Bank AG, Mathias Schormann © Cai Guo-Qiang
Heritage, shown in January 2013 at the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art
Art Critical Interpretation
Strategies for eliciting genuine, rich responses
• Socratic Dialogues
• Collaborative tasks
• Art “games”
• Predictive tasks
• ‘Learning conversations’
• Using ICT and social media
• The “flipped lesson”
Huang Yong Ping, ‘Two Baits’, 2001, iron, fibreglass, metal sheets, 160 x 300 x 800 cm. Image reproduced courtesy of the artist and Rockbund Museum, Shanghai.
And what about resources?
• Start with the ‘hook’ for your students –engaging, fascinating contemporary artworks that will intrigue – and provoke - them
• Use sources such as the Venice Biennale, The MCA, 4A, White Rabbit Gallery, QAGOMA, regional galleries – and social media!
• Try Ocula - http://ocula.com/
• http://artasiapacific.com/
www.teachingchineseart.com
Use my website – designed especially for NSW teachers and art students!
Let’s begin with Ai Weiwei
ButLet’s not stay in
the ‘90s!!!!!
@Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz
Why would we put Ai Weiwei in a Case Study?
• Well – Duchamp, of course!
Warhol. Of course!
Ai Weiwei in the Conceptual Framework
• Postmodern practice
• Collaborative, “fabricated” art
• The art of social engagement – and social media
• “Relational aesthetics”
• Roles of contemporary artists in the artworld
• “Ai Weiwei is the Marcel Duchamp or Joseph Beuys of our time. He makes art matter.” (Jonathan Jones)
Possible “hooks”…
• Ai Weiwei and social provocation – the art of dissent
• Ai Weiwei and Duchamp – the continuing significance of the found object
• Ai Weiwei and Warhol – two versions of “the factory”
• Ai Weiwei and conversations across national borders – the art of exchange
Who’s Afraid of Ai Weiwei?
But there is so much more to Chinese contemporary art than Ai Weiwei…
• For a start, there are all the women!
Han Yajuan both celebrates and challenges the aesthetic of ‘cuteness’
A shameless advertisement!
In the Piper Press catalogue with an October release date.
More than 30 artists, in conversation with me and placed into their art historical context, each chapter is designed to form a case study, on its own or to be used in combination with others.
LIU ZHUOQUAN AND GAO RONGUNLESS OTHERWISE IDENTIFIED WITH SOURCES, ALL PHOTOGRAPHS WERE TAKEN BY LUISE GUEST AND ARE REPRODUCED WITH THE PERMISSION OF THE ARTISTS AND THEIR GALLERIES
Two Case Studies of Artists’ Practice
THE PRACTITIONERS
2 exciting artists to engage and provoke secondary students
LIU ZHUOQUAN
Focus Artist #1
“My work is like a scientific laboratory”
Liu Zhuoquan, image courtesy the artist and China Art Projects
“Neihua”– traditional “Inside Bottle” painting
Traditional ‘inside painted’ snuff bottles (“Nei Hua”), were painted with a fine curved bamboo brush, and with the details first, backgrounds second
All images of Liu Zhuoquan and his works courtesy the artist and China Art Projects
“On the surface life seems quiet and calm, but underneath danger lurks, represented by the idea of scientific specimens in bottles. Also we use bottles all the time in our daily life, so they are a symbol of the everyday. Traditionally painted snuff bottles emphasised the imaginary world contained inside the bottle, so in my everyday bottles I am also creating an imaginary world.”
“Bottles can be a place to conceal or save memories, the past and our history. Some of my bottles contain memories of the Cultural Revolution times, and other reflections of real events, but in a ‘veiled’ way. In the place where I was born the temple was used for the ashes of the dead, which were contained in bottles. My name is the name of this temple.”
“My time in Tibet was very important, and the influence of Tibetan culture is there in my work. The Tibetan attitude to death and their philosophy is quite different, and this can be seen in their ‘sky burial’ ceremony. It is necessary always to have a dream as life and death are so interconnected.”
Seen at the 18th Biennale of Sydney, 2012, in Museum of Contemporary ArtImage courtesy the artist and BoS
Chang’An Avenue (installation detail) shown at Sydney Contemporary, September 2013
What if?
What if Liu Zhuoquan used new bottles straight from the factory? Would the meaning be different?
What if YOU made an installation of objects painted in bottles to reflect an issue of concern to you – what
would they be?
Imagine other ways of installing these works, fragile as they are – if YOU were the curator, what would you
suggest to the artist?
What if Liu doesn’t do any of the painting himself? Does it matter? Is it still his own artwork?
Compare and contrast the practice of Liu Zhuoquan with Australian artist Fiona Hall. In particular, look at her works ‘Mourning Chorus’ and ‘Cell Culture’ and comment on the way that each artist has employed ‘found’ and discarded materials to make a comment about their world.
Images of Hall’s works from http://roslynoxley9.com.au/artists/17/Fiona_Hall/481/
Art Critical Connections
GAO RONG
Focus Artist #2
“I am a sculptor who uses embroidery, not an embroiderer”
Gao Rong, Level 1/2, Unit 8, Building 5, Hua Jiadi, North Village (2010) fabric, thread, sponge, metal, image reproduced courtesy of the artist and White Rabbit Gallery.
http://www.randian-online.com/np_feature/in-grandmothers-house/
“What kind of car can a taxi be exchanged for?” (2013)
Beijing ‘San lun che’ taxi – entirely made of embroidered fabric over an armature of steel and foam.
Image courtesy the artist and Klein Sun Gallery New York
Can you suggest other elements of the urban, suburban or even the rural world that could be replicated using this technique?
What if these sculptures were made from fibreglass, plastic or
steel – or even stone?
Would the meaning change?
Planning a learning experience for your students
• Select a contemporary Chinese artist or artists
• Select a few works which you know will intrigue/confuse/surprise your students
• Ai Weiwei? Song Dong? Liu Zhuoquan? Cao Fei? Cai Guo-Qiang?
• Start to develop the introductory lesson:
“the hook!”
Working as a critic….
• Step 1: invite students to observe, think, speculate and wonder
• Step 2: require students to use rich language and their developing art vocabulary to describe, analyse and interpret a work without plagiarism or 2nd-hand ideas
• Step 3: Invite students to ask “What if?”
• Step 4: Invite students to consider the relationships to their own artmaking
And back to Ai Weiwei again…a model of description, speculation, deduction
and contextualisation• http://vimeo.com/64886243
Build the differentiation
• A “common” core task – readings and questions and/or a “flipped” lesson
• A “learning conversation” – structured with provocative questions
• Differentiated tasks for groups identified with quantifiable data – transparent and clearly communicated to students
• A “real world” writing task – a blog, a youtubevideo, a tweet, a skyped or face-to-face artist interview recorded and transcribed?
Year 11 student web sites –collected critical encounters with artworks
• http://carlacritique.weebly.com/
• http://artwritingbyalana.weebly.com/
Thank you / Xie Xie! / 谢谢