K. Gilderhus: Art History and the Art + Design Student

made:
Design Education
the Art
of Making
&
26th National Conference on the Beginning Design Student
College of Arts + Architecture
The University of North Carolina at Charlotte
18–21 March 2010
PROCEEDINGS
2010
made:
Design Education
the Art
of Making
&
MADE: Design Education & the Art of Making examined the role of making past, present
& future, both in teaching design and in the
design of teaching. The conference addressed
theories & practices addressing fabrication &
craft in all studio disciplines, and to take measure of their value in pedagogies of beginning
design.
Paper presentations delivered a set of eight
themes derived from the overall focus on Making. The team of moderators drove the agenda
for these themes, and arranged paper presentations into specific sessions indicated by the
schedule. Abstracts were reviewed in a blind
peer-review process.
Conference co-chairs:
Jeffrey Balmer & Chris Beorkrem
Keynote speakers:
Simon Unwin
David Leatherbarrow
Offered through the Research Office for Novice Design Education, LSU, College of Art and
Design, School of Architecture
Copyright ©2110 School of Architecture, The
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Session Topics
Making Real
Moderator: Greg Snyder
Making Virtual
Moderators: Nick Ault, David Hill
Making Writing
Moderators: Nora Wendl, Anne Sobiech-Munson
Making Drawings
Moderators: Thomas Forget, Kristi Dykema
Making Pedagogy
Moderator: Michael Swisher
Making Connections
Moderator: Janet Williams, Patrick Lucas
Making Masters
Moderators: José Gamez, Peter Wong
Making the Survey
Moderators: Emily Makas, Rachel Rossner
Open Session
Moderators: Jennifer Shields, Bryan Shields
Paper abstract reviewers
· Silvia Ajemian · Nicholas Ault · Jonathan Bell · Julia Bernert
· Gail Peter Borden · Stoel Burrowes · Kristi Dykema
· Thomas Forget · Jose Gamez · Laura Garafalo
· Mohammad Gharipour · David Hill · Tom Leslie
· Patrick Lucas · Emily Makas · Igor Marjanovic · Andrew McLellan
· Mikesch Muecke · Gregory Palermo · Jorge Prado · Kiel Moe
· Marek Ranis · Rachel Rossner · Bryan Shields · Jen Shields
· Greg Snyder · Ann Sobiech- Munson
· Michael Swisher · Sean Vance · Nora Wendl
· Catherine Wetzel · Janet Williams · Peter Wong · Natalie Yates
ART HISTORY AND THE ART +
DESIGN STUDENT: EXPERIMENTS
IN ASSESSMENT AND ASSIGNMENTS AT RMCAD
Making Survey
Situating art history within the context of an
art and design school is a unique challenge. At
the Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design in
Lakewood, Colorado, the art history curriculum
is designed with a dual focus. Students train
within the discipline of art history by reading
scholarship, conducting research, and developing their writing and critical thinking skills
through a variety of assignments ranging from
formal analysis to more extensive research
papers. We want to prepare students to take
graduate level courses within an MFA or an
Art History program. At the same time, they
learn to use art history as a tool for their own
development as artists and designers. Through
coursework they gain a rich catalog of images
from which to draw, numerous examples of
visual and conceptual problem solving, and
practice research and writing in preparation for
artist statements, grant writing, and communication with clients. In this paper, I will briefly
consider the institutional context of art history
at RMCAD, and then address ways the art history division seeks to create methods of assessment, writing assignments, and classroom
strategies that successfully integrate this relationship between art history and art and design
education.
The artist Philip J. Steele founded RMCAD in
Denver in 1963. As the college grew it moved
to various locations in the city. Currently it is
located on a 23-acre campus that once served
as a tuberculosis hospital and village. It is a
designated historic site, and many of the buildings are listed on the National Historic Register. Philip Steele was committed to a vision of
artistic expression grounded in academic excellence. In 2000 RMCAD attained The Higher
Learning Commission (HLC) accreditation, and
then the National Association of Schools of
Art and Design (NASAD) accreditation in 2003.
RMCAD transformed from a technical school to
an art and design college grounded strongly in
KIKI GILDERHUS, HEAD OF ART HISTORY
DEPARTMENT OF LIBERAL STUDIES, ROCKY
MOUNTAIN COLLEGE OF ART + DESIGN
the liberal arts, and art history emerged as an
important component of the curriculum.
At RMCAD students are required to take
a sequence of four art history courses. This
includes two surveys, Ancient to Medieval Art
and Renaissance to Contemporary Art. Nonwestern art focuses on the arts of Asia, India,
and Africa depending on faculty expertise, and
the last course Advanced Studies in Art History offers a range of topics including Abstract
Expressionism, the History of Photography,
and Modern Latin American Art. When I was
hired in 2006 as Head of the art history division, the sequence was in place but there was
no established curriculum. Since then, with the
help of a hard working and dedicated faculty,
I’ve engaged in an on-going and exciting process of designing the art history curriculum. At
RMCAD, we have two full time faculty and four
adjunct instructors. The small size facilitates
a spirit of experimentation and collaboration.
The four-course sequence serves as a laboratory
in which we can test new methods of assessment, writing assignments, and classroom
strategies. When something works, it is easy to
implement across the courses.
One of the first projects the art history faculty tackled was constructing a better art history exam, particularly with regard to slide
identifications. A typical exam consists of an
array of image identifications, short answer
questions, and an essay comparing and contrasting two works of art. In the survey courses,
Ancient to Medieval and Renaissance to Contemporary art, the image identifications are
crucial to building a visual vocabulary of significant artists, works, and styles. For the exam,
students learned thirty to forty images and
identified ten of them by artist, title, date, and
style. Yet this particular aspect of the exam created an excessive amount of anxiety for students, especially freshmen in Ancient to Medieval Art during their first semester of college.
ncdbs 2010
figure 1: Purse Cover from Sutton Hoo, 625 CE, Anglo Saxon Art
Many objected outright to memorizing dates,
refused to do so, and then scored poorly on
the exam. This prompted us to redesign the
slide identifications
In the new format students learn twenty to
thirty images, identify six or seven by artist,
title, date, and style, and then they discuss why
the image is significant. Their answer should
consider medium, country or region of origin,
purpose, symbolism, and meaning. Additionally they must incorporate at least two vocabulary terms into their answers. Student answers
changed from simply “Artist, Title, Date, and
Style” to:
This was found in a medieval ship burial in England. The purse cover is an example of cloissoné, a gold frame filled with garnets and enamel
with hinges at the top. In the upper register are
polygons with abstract designs and four animals
whose bodies create a ribbon interlace pattern.
On the bottom are Swedish hawks with ducks in
their mouths and men between two beasts. The
artifacts found at Sutton Hoo were fine and precious, indicative of the high status of the person
buried there.1
The new format includes the “hard data” of
the work (artist, title, date, style) but allows for
a much fuller description and discussion of the
image. Students have greater flexibility in their
answer, and it better demonstrates what they
know. Further, student test scores improved
from one semester to the next when we
changed the identification format. In a sample of six sections of Ancient to Medieval Art,
exam averages jumped from 68 to 75. We also
noticed that most students successfully memorized the “hard data” for each image. In class
1 I’ve adapted this example from an exam written
by Elyse Shillito for AH1010: Ancient to Medieval Art
at Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design, December 9, 2009.
evaluations, students thought the exam was
harder but they preferred the new slide identification format because it moved away from
rote memorization and required a more meaningful discussion of the work of art.
In all of the art history courses, it is critical that students read beyond Marilyn Stokstad’s Art History, the survey textbook. I want
to focus on ways we introduce research and
writing within the discipline of art history. In
Renaissance to Contemporary Art, students
are assigned a scholarly article analysis using
the electronic databases available through the
library.2 Students choose a specific work like
Picasso’s painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, or
an artist, which is defined broadly to encompass the majors. Using electronic databases
including JSTOR, Project Muse, and Academic
Search Premiere, they find three scholarly articles on their topic. In many cases, they can
access the full text of the article online. Students also track down the articles at research
libraries in the Denver area.
In the paper, students briefly summarize the
articles, identifying and describing the thesis
and argument made by each author. Then in
the process of comparing and contrasting them,
students consider the following questions:
What kind of evidence do the authors use to substantiate their arguments?
What theoretical framework do they use?
Do the authors employ formal analysis?
Do they agree or disagree with each other?
What’s in the footnotes? Did you find anything
interesting there?
In this way, students develop expertise with
electronic databases, and learn to distinguish
between popular and scholarly articles. In the
analysis, they examine different methods and
theories in the field, and they think critically
about the arguments presented. The assignment allows students to examine three views
of a single piece, or to look more broadly at
aspects of an artist’s work. In the best papers
I’ve received, students also begin to develop
an awareness of the history of art history and
how the scholarship is constructed over time.
The assignment prepares them for lengthier research papers in the Nonwestern and
Advanced Studies courses.
2 This assignment is a modified version designed by
Dr. Laura Gelfand at the University of Akron.
361
In the upper division courses, faculty experimented with research papers that combine an
element of professional practice. In the Nonwestern Art course of fall 2009, students chose
an aspect of Chinese, Japanese, or Indian art to
research, and then they created a visual proect.3 Additionally they composed a paper in
the form of an extended artist statement with
research presented on their chosen work of
art or aesthetic concept. The paper required
minimally five sources, two scholarly articles,
two books, and at least one reputable website.
For example, one student chose to interpret a
Ming Dynasty silk painting.4 She ordered raw
silk from China and then experimented with
paint manufactured specifically for the material. For her artist statement, she researched
and then discussed her work in relation to Yin
Hong’s late 15th century hanging scroll Hundred Birds Admiring the Peacocks.
The assignment pairing a visual project with
a well-researched artist statement achieves a
number of goals. Students research and write
within the discipline of art history, but synthesize and apply that research to their own
art making. They practice formal analysis and
work towards writing a better artist statement,
one that articulates their approach to materials, process, content, and concept in order to
educate the viewer. The research and writing
becomes personal and practical, a skill they
can develop to better succeed as artists and
designers after college.
Another way to emphasize the connection between writing and art is through the
use of artist statements. During the semester I assign three or four artist statements, and
while students write responses to these readings, I really like to have students read them
out loud in class. This started in my Modern
Latin American art course during a discussion
of Brazilian avant-garde artists of the 1920s. In
order to understand Tarsila do Amaral’s painting Abaporú [Figure 2], which translates as
“man eats,” students read Oswald de Andrade’s
Anthropophagite Manifesto. De Andrade was
3 Two faculty members, Phil Gerace and Neely Patton, designed the visual project / artist statement
project.
4 Student Katie Maxwell made the silk painting of a
peacock for AH2010: Nonwestern Art at Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design, Fall 2009.
362
figure 2: Tarsila do Amaral
a poet and married to Tarsila. In his manifesto, de Andrade establishes the relationship
between Latin American and European Modernism using the idea of anthropophagy or cannibalism. He argues that Brazilian artists should
cannibalize European art forms the way indigenous people cannibalized the first explorers.
For examples, he writes:
Only anthropophagy unites us. Socially. Economically. Philosophically. The world’s only law. The
disguised expression of all individualisms, of all
collectivisms. Of all religions. Of all peace treaties.
Tupy or not Tupy, that is the question.
Down with the all catechisms. And down with
the mother of the Gracchi. The only thing that
interests me are those that are not mine. The laws
of men. The laws of the anthropophagites.5
The manifesto is funny and rhetorically
extreme. He makes numerous references to
European literature and history. The line “Tupy
or not Tupy, that is the question” replaces
Hamlet’s “To be or not be” with name of the
Tupí-Guaraní, a tribe of Indians from the Amazon basin said to practice cannibalism.
Reading this dense, difficult text out loud, students could hear how de Andrade intended
the manifesto to sound. They appreciated the
humor and began to understand the way he
5 Patrick Frank, ed., Readings in Latin American Art
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 24.
ncdbs 2010
employed the strategy of anthropophagy in
his own writing. In the discussion that followed, they were full of questions and insights
about his source material, and the relationship between the manifesto and Tarsila’s depiction of a Brazilian Indian. Most students have
not read out loud since they were children.
Later, some told me that they felt a little selfconscious, but that it was a lot of fun. The act
of reading out loud transforms the words into
vital ideas, and now I use this strategy in all of
my classes, asking students to read excerpts
from Michelangelo’s letters, the Futurist Manifesto, or the poetry of Kurt Schwitters. It
shakes up the energy of lecture and allows students to think about artists in their capacity as
writers.
The challenge of integrating art history
with art and design education shapes the art
history curriculum at RMCAD. We design the
methods of assessment, writing assignments,
and classroom strategies for each course with
a dual focus. We strive to train students within
balance the academic discipline of art history
while teaching them to use art history within
their own creative process. In this way art history is an integral part of a well-rounded artist
and designer.
Works Cited
Frank, Patrick, ed. Readings in Latin American Art. New Haven: Yale University Press,
2004.
363