How do we experience art?

Flash Points

Freewaves: Video Between Their Toes

Flash Points

Freewaves: Video Between Their Toes

Freewaves turned 20 this year. The grassroots new media organization that began in 1989 with a gaping, loosely defined mission to show Los Angeles to itself celebrated its birthday on …

Flash Points

Experience in Art Education

Flash Points

Experience in Art Education

“An art school, it would appear, does not teach art, but sets up the conditions necessary for creative production, and by extension the conditions for collaboration and social engagement.” — …

Flash Points

Machine Project: A.I.R. at the Hammer

Flash Points

Machine Project: A.I.R. at the Hammer

On a recent weekend at the Hammer Museum, you may have stumbled across other visitors napping on the gallery floor and wondered if they had succumbed to museum fatigue. In …

Flash Points

Looking at Los Angeles

One Day Only De Maria

Flash Points

Looking at Los Angeles

One Day Only De Maria

In 1969, when Lee Lozano began her Dialogue Piece, a project for which she simply invited artists and others to talk with her, she called Walter De Maria twice, once …

Flash Points

Seeing and Time: Video Art as Experience

Flash Points

Seeing and Time: Video Art as Experience

It is neither a secret nor a surprise to know that, regardless of broad worldly appeal, the average Louvre visitor views the Mona Lisa for a scarce fifteen seconds before …

Flash Points

Creat(ive) Expectations

Flash Points

Creat(ive) Expectations

Earlier this spring, I ventured to MoMA with my parents who were visiting from New Hampshire for the weekend. Since I can recall, my folks have consistently supported my own …

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Art Beyond Excerpts

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Art Beyond Excerpts

Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith’s book, “Seen Art?”, starts this way: It all started when I told my friend Art I would meet him on the corner of 5th and …

Flash Points

The Experience of Unknowing

Flash Points

The Experience of Unknowing

“We lay hold of the full import of a work of art only as we go through in our own vital processes the processes the artist went through in producing …

Flash Points

Come Curious

Flash Points

Come Curious

Good experience, bad experience. Life experience, work experience. First experience, years of experience. Learning experience. Sensory experience. Out-of-body experience. Shared experience. We experience life in innumerable, and oftentimes indescribable, ways. …

(UC Crisis) Post 3: Try Not to Do This Again

(UC Crisis) Post 3: Try Not to Do This Again

In a series of special posts, guest blogger alum Marc Herbst and regular contributor Catherine Wagley chronicle the University of California education crisis. Following is Wagley’s take. — Ed. When …

Flash Points

Interactive and Participatory Art

Flash Points

Interactive and Participatory Art

“Our advanced art approaches a fragile but marvelous life, one that maintains itself by a mere thread, melting into an elusive, changeable configuration, the surroundings, the artist, his work and …

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Can a successful work of art make you angry?

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Can a successful work of art make you angry?

Can a successful work of art make you angry, uncomfortable, or confused? This is one of the many questions we engage in as art educators and also one of the …

Flash Points

Multiple Intelligences

Flash Points

Multiple Intelligences

I teach art at a school where the subject is not just a once-a-week occurrence.  New City School is a Multiple Intelligences school where art (using spatial intelligence) is used …

Flash Points

Flash Points: Art & Experience

Flash Points

Flash Points: Art & Experience

We each look at the world from our own individual perspectives, within contexts that are constantly shifting.  Our unique outlook as viewers, the specific viewpoint of the artist, the curatorial …

Flash Points

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Better Than Ketchup and Vaseline

Flash Points

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Better Than Ketchup and Vaseline

Twice recently I have been contacted by teachers who have run into some trouble sharing Art21 videos with their classes. In both cases these teachers were called by parents (and …

Flash Points

Call for Writers: New Flash Points Topic

Flash Points

Call for Writers: New Flash Points Topic

Our new Flash Points topic, Art and Experience, will be launching soon and we’re inviting you to participate!  If this sounds good to you, read on: We each have our …