Education (Documents of Contemporary Art)

Whitechapel: Documents of Contemporary Art

by Felicity Allen

This book will be an original and indispensable resource for all whobelieve in the importance of art in the wider educational realm. Framing the recent"educational turn" in the arts within a broad historical and socialcontext, this anthology raises fundamental questions about how and what should betaught in an era of distributive rather than media-based practices. Among the manysources and arguments traced here is second-wave feminism, which questioned dominantnotions of personal and institutional freedom as enacted through art teaching andpractice. Similarly, education-based responses by the art community to thecatastrophes of World War II and postcolonial conflict critically informcontemporary art confronting the interrelationships of education, power, marketcapitalism, and--as Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri describe it--the globalcondition of war. These writings by artists, philosophers, educators, poets, andactivists center on three recurring and interrelated the notion of"indiscipline" in theories and practices that challenge boundaries of allkinds; the present and future role of the art school; and the turn to pedagogy asmedium in a diverse range of recent projects. Other writings address such issues asinstrumentalism and control, liberation and equality, the production and thepolitics of culture, and the roots of research-based practice and experimentalparticipatory works.

Genres: Art, Art History, Education

Paperback

First published August 5, 2011

Reviews

[sam howie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great resource, hands down, my only complaint is that it needs more pages. Too much crammed editing. This series of books has a set number of pages for each book and with this edition, I didn't feel it was enough. While Thierry de Duve is rightly given a generous amount of pages for this type of publication, trying to reduce John Dewey's work in art education to 1 & 1/2 pages just seems wrong.

[Kevin]

An acceptable collection of essays and excerpts from artists' writings on the intersection of education and contemporary art. I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about it. It's not as good as other books in the MIT/Whitechapel "Documents of Contemporary Art" series ( Participation and Sound are mind-blowing), but has its bright spots. The excerpt from Virginia Woolf is gorgeous.