This Onofrio unit was developed using post-modern principles and is an example of teaching visual culture in the K-12 classroom.
Deconstructing the Terms. In the classroom I call deconstruction “symbol detecting.” Postmodern art has received a negative reputation for being the “art of the intellectuals”. Deconstruction gives access to all viewers and provides a structure for developing the critical thinking skills reportedly a challenge for contemporary students.
Post-modernism. Postmodernism has its roots in structural anthropology. The term “Postmodernism” first appeared in print in Joseph Hudnot’s Architecture and the Spirit of Man (1949). The term “postmodernism” started to be used by critics in the late 1970’s and usually meant “after” modernism but was often translated by many to mean “against” modernism. Modernisms’ “artist as lonely solo voice” (no longer influenced by the patron) reached the far left (or right, according to your world view) of the pendulum swing with the arrival of “minimalism” defined as “form stripped down to ground zero” (Atkins, 1990 p.131) and, as many artists such as Donald Judd, plated “with no contextual meaning.”
Post Modern Education. Judi Petkau and I really like the chart in my mentor’s book Efland, Freeman, and Stuhr’s Postmodern Art Education: An Approach to Curriculum, (pg. 112)
- PRINCIPAL 1: THE LITTLE NARATIVE
This unit focuses on pluralism and local knowledge. Each student works to express his or her own personal stories and meanings as valid art content. - PRINCIPAL 2: THE POWER-KNOWLEDGE LINK
Social forces in the art world are investigated through the study of outsider and local artists. The shifting value of artworks explored. - PRINCIPAL 3: DECONSTRUCTION
Viewer oriented looking is promoted, discussion encouraged, and multiple interpretation embraced. The media used in this unit emphasizes assemblage of found and perhaps recycled objects.
Conceptualism. Conceptual art emphasizes the concept, the feeling, or idea that is created in the viewer’s mind. The idea (hopefully a new one) is the art. Atkins (1990) describes conceptual art as “a document of the artists’ thinking” (p. 63).
Naming the Artwork. The title of your artwork should be chosen with a great deal of care. Naming an artwork provides the opportunity to take an etymological trip, a journey that always fascinates me.
Methods and Techniques. Assemblage is one of my favorite art making methods because it encourages the artist to incorporate “power objects” in the artwork. In this case, the students will gather objects that hold meaning in their lives. I believe the American trend towards removing ritual and tradition from our collective culture leaves our youth seeking purposefulness and personal history.