What influences art?

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Ten Years…… Right Between the Eyes: Zoe Strauss at the Philadelphia Museum

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Ten Years…… Right Between the Eyes: Zoe Strauss at the Philadelphia Museum

Every once in a blue moon you get surprised by an exhibit that takes your breath away. Kiki Smith did it to me in 2006 and last year Glenn Ligon …

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Talking with Janine Antoni and Getting Set for NAEA: Part Two

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Talking with Janine Antoni and Getting Set for NAEA: Part Two

Part two of my recent interview with Janine Antoni in advance of her keynote address and workshop at the National Art Education Association’s annual conference here in New York from March 1-4.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Talking with Janine Antoni and Getting Set for NAEA: Part One

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Talking with Janine Antoni and Getting Set for NAEA: Part One

This week’s column features a brand, new interview with Janine Antoni in advance of her upcoming keynote address and workshop at the National Art Education Association’s annual conference on March 1st here in New York City.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Working with Memory

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Working with Memory

Working with memory presents challenges, like many themes and ideas we choose to teach with, that are terribly difficult to get rolling without an organized, broad and juicy introduction. This week’s column explores how looking back can help with planning forward for better introductions to thematic units.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

It’s OK to Make Art…

Teaching with Contemporary Art

It’s OK to Make Art…

It’s amazing… After over twenty years teaching I still get nervous. And I’m not thinking about the first day of classes (everyone gets nervous then), I was actually thinking about …

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Getting Set for PS1’s “September 11”

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Getting Set for PS1’s “September 11”

In two weeks I am taking a group of students to visit the September 11 exhibition at PS1. Most of the high school students in these two classes have some …

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Taking the Long Way Home: Working With a Theme in a Series

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Taking the Long Way Home: Working With a Theme in a Series

One of the students in my advanced classes is taking on the theme of “looking vs. seeing” for her first semester portfolio. She wants to explore the things people tend …

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Art21 New York Close Up

Teaching with New York Close Up: Lucas Blalock’s 99¢ Store Still Lifes

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Art21 New York Close Up

Teaching with New York Close Up: Lucas Blalock’s 99¢ Store Still Lifes

Lucas Blalock’s only plan is to work… preferably in the evenings. He deals with a set of parameters that his tools provide and brings things he purchases at local discount …

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Teaching About Poverty and Homelessness

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Teaching About Poverty and Homelessness

This past Saturday, New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow wrote an op-ed piece called Them That’s Not Shall Lose which highlighted, as James Baldwin put it, how expensive it …

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Installation in Installments

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Installation in Installments

Each year the graduates and upperclassmen I work with look forward to their final project as a way of leaving a stamp on the school itself. Students are asked to …

The Friends and Family Plan: Sol LeWitt and Eva Hesse

The Friends and Family Plan: Sol LeWitt and Eva Hesse

This post is about a show that’s up at Craig F. Starr Gallery until May 27—a collection of artworks by Sol LeWitt and Eva Hesse. This isn’t a review because …

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Teaching with Contemporary Art: The First Three Years

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Teaching with Contemporary Art: The First Three Years

This week Teaching with Contemporary Art here on the blog turns 3. Frankly, I can’t believe that I’ve been writing this column for three years. At the same time, it …

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Teaching with Rochelle Feinstein

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Teaching with Rochelle Feinstein

This week’s post should really be titled “Rochelle Feinstein Teaching Me” but I’m trying to be consistent… Prior to May 1st, please treat yourself and check out The Estate of …

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Rethinking “The Critique”: Possibilities

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Rethinking “The Critique”: Possibilities

As promised in last week’s column I want to share some possibilities when it comes to facilitating in-progress critiques with students. Critiques that take place as an idea is taking …

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Rethinking “The Critique”

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Rethinking “The Critique”

Like many art students, I couldn’t stand critiques when I was in high school and especially college. I even had a professor in grad school that would survey the finished …

Turkish and Other Delights

Turkish and Other Delights | biriken

Turkish and Other Delights

Turkish and Other Delights | biriken

biriken is the five year old interdisciplinary, collaborative project of Melis Tezkan and Okan Urun. Working at the intersection of performance art, installation art, and traditional theater practice, Tezkan and …

Flash Points

Speaking of Influence: A Monument’s Invisible Man

Flash Points

Speaking of Influence: A Monument’s Invisible Man

“To make the monuments speak again we must question the often bland surface they show the world.” –Kirk Savage, Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves “Do I speak for everyone? No. No …

Flash Points

Flash Points: Intimacy and Art

Flash Points

Flash Points: Intimacy and Art

If deprived of intimacy—without the closeness of another human’s body and touch—a human child has little chance of survival past infancy. In societies where the majority of people have all …

Flash Points

Flash Points: Friends and Influence

Flash Points

Flash Points: Friends and Influence

Tonight, I am sitting in a red booth at Formosa Café in Hollywood, the Cantonese restaurant Frank Sinatra reportedly frequented when heartsick over Ava Gardner. Lana Turner came here too, …

Teaching with Contemporary Art

When One Day Is Not Enough

Teaching with Contemporary Art

When One Day Is Not Enough

With all of the mandatory testing that students must be put through it’s no wonder that most kids, especially in elementary grades, receive classes in visual and performing arts one …

Jeffrey Augustine Songco, "The Opening Scene". Courtesy the artist.

Flash Points

Art Under the Influence

Flash Points

Art Under the Influence

After reading Flash Points Editor Rachel Craft‘s initial post (“Flash Points: What Influences Art?”) regarding William Kentridge’s love of the stage, I thought it would be appropriate to continue that line …

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Working with Violent Images

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Working with Violent Images

Only a few days ago I was all set to write a post that highlighted the plight of Curtis Acosta, an Arizona teacher who finds himself in the position of …

Flash Points

Call For Artists: Creative Limitations

Flash Points

Call For Artists: Creative Limitations

The artist-gallery relationship presents a curious contradiction. That is, there is the notion that a gallery representing contemporary artwork has a certain responsibility for promoting challenging and inspiring ideas, whereas, …

Flash Points

Relational Aesthetics is the New Black: DIY Art School

Flash Points

Relational Aesthetics is the New Black: DIY Art School

Relational art functions as a response to the technological advances of everyday life, with virtual profiles acting as surrogates for human interaction.  Less obvious are the ways in which the …

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Teaching with David Wojnarowicz (and Not Teaching with the Smithsonian)

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Teaching with David Wojnarowicz (and Not Teaching with the Smithsonian)

In light of the recent debacle at the Smithsonian involving the removal of David Wojnarowicz’s A Fire in My Belly, I thought it might make sense to suggest some ways …

Flash Points

Music and Art

Flash Points

Music and Art

Examples of the influence of music on art are as iconic as they are profuse: Jackson Pollack madly swirling paint around him as Dizzy Gillespie blares on the hi-fi; Andy …

Going to California: Gina Tuzzi, Part 2

Going to California: Gina Tuzzi, Part 2

Nostalgia is the longing for a home that never was; its subject is an idealized place where the troubles of today hold no sway. In paintings, drawings, and sculptures, Northern …

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Teaching About a Day Without…

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Teaching About a Day Without…

Today marks the observance of Day Without Art, a day when the arts community takes the time to remember and respond to the AIDS crisis and its impact worldwide. Day …

Flash Points

Under the Influence: Drugs, God and Politics in Self-Taught Art

Flash Points

Under the Influence: Drugs, God and Politics in Self-Taught Art

In 1974, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis launched the exhibition Naives and Visionaries, showcasing nine artists whose work manifested itself through artistic environments, both secretive and public. Martin Friedman …

Flash Points

Neuenschwander and Influence

Flash Points

Neuenschwander and Influence

Earlier this week, art historian Monica Amor lectured at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis on the topic of Neo-Concrete art in Brazil in …

Flash Points

Art Under the Influence of Others

Flash Points

Art Under the Influence of Others

In 1996, Jennifer Ringley took a video camera and placed it on her computer.  The camera was nothing new: a simple web camera with light broadcasting capabilities.  She signed on, …

Flash Points

Art21 William Kentridge: Anything is Possible

There’s No Place Like Home

Flash Points

Art21 William Kentridge: Anything is Possible

There’s No Place Like Home

On Johannesburg | “William Kentridge: Anything Is Possible” (2010) Preview | Art21 from Art21 on Vimeo. It is nearly impossible to talk about William Kentridge’s artistic practice without mentioning – …

Flash Points

From the Flat Surface to the Curved Mirror

Flash Points

From the Flat Surface to the Curved Mirror

[youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL3lVDrqNXY] Using variable media – taking the form of tapestry and sculpture to performance, cinema, and stereoscopic imagery— William Kentridge calculates a not so obvious curve to create socially informed …

Flash Points

Art21 William Kentridge: Anything is Possible

New Flash Points: Influence

Flash Points

Art21 William Kentridge: Anything is Possible

New Flash Points: Influence

Among the elements explored in Art21’s William Kentridge: Anything is Possible, the film looks at his many influences, from his personal background to his love of the performing arts. What …

Flash Points

Art21 William Kentridge: Anything is Possible

Call for Writers: Next Flash Points

Flash Points

Art21 William Kentridge: Anything is Possible

Call for Writers: Next Flash Points

Our new Flash Points topic, Influence, will be launching soon and we’re inviting you to participate! An artist’s work can be influenced by a myriad of sources — family history, …