Teaching with Contemporary Art

Thoughts from the classroom on the intersection of art and education

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Extending Beyond Craftsmanship, into Inquiry and Exploration

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Extending Beyond Craftsmanship, into Inquiry and Exploration

Dana Joy Helwick explains how, and why, she uses contemporary artists as role models in her classroom.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Action Verbs

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Action Verbs

Art21 Educator, Marie Elcin, discusses her use of “action verbs” inside of the classroom, inspired by Richard Serra’s Verb List (1967-68).

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Creating a Platform for New Voices

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Creating a Platform for New Voices

Art21 Educator, Marie Elcin, describes the impact of the social practice artworks and being inspired by the work of Mel Chin.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Cultivating Collections

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Cultivating Collections

Choice-based Art21 Educator, Maureen Hergott explains how she uses collections in the classroom to inspire creativity in her students.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Introducing the Art21 Educators Year Nine Cohort

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Introducing the Art21 Educators Year Nine Cohort

Joe Fusaro, Art21’s senior education advisor, introduces the ninth cohort of Art21 Educators.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Introducing the 2019-2020 Cohort of Art21 Educators

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Introducing the 2019-2020 Cohort of Art21 Educators

Art21 is proud to announce the twelve educators that will join the incoming ninth cohort of Art21 Educators.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Harnessing the Penchant for Play

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Harnessing the Penchant for Play

Art21 Educator, Maureen Hergott, shares a lesson designed to inspire students to engage their imagination and construct artworks inspired by the human form.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Fueled by the Classroom: Being an Artist and Educator

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Fueled by the Classroom: Being an Artist and Educator

Art21’s senior education advisor, Joe Fusaro, shares how he makes meaningful connections between his art practice and being an arts educator.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

To Evoke Emotion

Teaching with Contemporary Art

To Evoke Emotion

Art21 Educator Dennis Greenwell shares an exercise that encouraged students to explore and embrace emotional reactions to artwork.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Landscape and Inquiry

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Landscape and Inquiry

Art21 Educator Dennis Greenwell screened the “Extended Play” film “Julie Mehretu: Politicized Landscapes” and shares the inspiring classroom discussion and activity that ensued as a result.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Agency in the Classroom: Who Makes the Decisions?

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Agency in the Classroom: Who Makes the Decisions?

Art21 Educator Alisa Rodny explains how she encourages students to take agency in their art-making and shares the story of two students who used artistic voice to express their stories of immigration to the United States.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Making Important Choices

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Making Important Choices

Educator Joe Fusaro illustrates how contemporary art and artists can have a local and global effect through the lens of works by Creative Growth Art Center, Olafur Elliason and Robin Rhode.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Teaching as a Collaborator

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Teaching as a Collaborator

Art21 Educator Alisa Rodny shares an assignment she developed where students partner with an artist from the Art21 archive to collaborate with and using their own style as a model.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

The Power of Words

Teaching with Contemporary Art

The Power of Words

Educator-in-Residence Jeannine Bardo shares her unit plan on language, in which students investigate the power of text through art.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Rooted in the Home: Thoughts on Building Connections Between Students & Artists

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Rooted in the Home: Thoughts on Building Connections Between Students & Artists

Educator-in-Residence Jocelyn Salaz offers insight into how incorporating familiar aesthetics can help students identify with artists.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Communicating en Masse: The Art of Activism

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Communicating en Masse: The Art of Activism

Educator-in-Residence Nick Kozak offers politically neutral ways of teaching on protest art and activism in the classroom.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Radical Art in a Conservative School

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Radical Art in a Conservative School

Art21 Educator Dennis Greenwell shares how a project on empathy helped his students better understand one another and our current political landscape.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Keep it Real, Keep it Relevant

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Keep it Real, Keep it Relevant

Educator-in-Residence Joseph Iacona shares the impact socially engaged artists have in classrooms with trauma-impacted students.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Scenius, Inspiration, and Invention

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Scenius, Inspiration, and Invention

Educator-in-Residence Todd Elkin reflects on the ways in which his classroom embodies the concept of “scenius,” in which creative inventions emerge from social contexts, as the students working near each other riff off one another’s strategies and ideas.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Assessment as Dialogue: Shifting Power Dynamics in the Classroom

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Assessment as Dialogue: Shifting Power Dynamics in the Classroom

Educator-in-Residence Todd Elkin explains the origins of his experimental curriculum “Assessment as Dialogue,” which upends the traditional power dynamics in a classroom and asks students and teachers to collaborate on the most effective methods of learning.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Inside, Outside, Online: Dissecting social media, escape and identity

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Inside, Outside, Online: Dissecting social media, escape and identity

Educator-in-Residence Stacey Abramson relates the experience of art-making to that of constructing an identity online—both are a means of self-presentation and escape.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Rust, Decay and Decomposition: Four Artists to Teach With

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Rust, Decay and Decomposition: Four Artists to Teach With

Art21 Senior Education Advisor Joe Fusaro shares four artists who use rust and decay to tell stories, illuminate histories, and prompt us to think about beauty in new ways.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Teaching with Nick Cave’s Until, Until Conversations Emerge

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Teaching with Nick Cave’s Until, Until Conversations Emerge

Art21 Senior Education Advisor Joe Fusaro discusses how Nick Cave’s immersive installation “Until” can serve as a conversation starter for difficult subjects like racism and violence.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Why Contemporary Art? Art21 & The Value of Inspiration

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Why Contemporary Art? Art21 & The Value of Inspiration

This Giving Tuesday, four Art21 Educators share how Art21’s films and programs have opened their students’ eyes to new possibilities.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

On Not Feeling Powerless: How Youth Activists and Art21 Artists Can Model Proactive Social Engagement

Teaching with Contemporary Art

On Not Feeling Powerless: How Youth Activists and Art21 Artists Can Model Proactive Social Engagement

Art21 Educator Todd Elkin discusses his students’ reactions to the 2016 presidential election, and how Art21 artists can serve as a model for constructive social engagement.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Finding Community: Art21 Educators and Contemporary Art in the Classroom

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Finding Community: Art21 Educators and Contemporary Art in the Classroom

Art21 Educator Jeannine Bardo shares how using Art21 films and resources in the classroom has expanded her teaching practice.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Art + Action: Creating a Platform for Social Justice

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Art + Action: Creating a Platform for Social Justice

Art21 Educator Jack Watson shares his recent experience with launching a social justice collective at his high school in Durham, North Carolina.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

ART21 Educators Institute: Laylah Ali on Process and “John Brown Song!”

Teaching with Contemporary Art

ART21 Educators Institute: Laylah Ali on Process and “John Brown Song!”

Artist Laylah Ali shares her thoughts on ‘process’ at July’s ART21 Educators Institute in New York City.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Classroom Catalysts: Enabling Personal Revolutions Through Art

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Classroom Catalysts: Enabling Personal Revolutions Through Art

“What is art but a way of seeing?” —Thomas Berger Sometimes the most significant revolutions make no noise at all, happening completely within someone’s frame of mind. These individual transformations might …

"Areas for Action," an experiment facilitated by artist Oliver Herring and ART21 Educator Jethro Gillespie at "Creative Chemistries," Park Avenue Armory, New York, 2015.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Generating Creative Chemistries

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Generating Creative Chemistries

An overview of the inaugural “Creative Chemistries”—an experimental platform bringing artists and educators together to explore innovative practices for art and education.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Creative Chemistries

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Creative Chemistries

When artists and educators get together, extraordinary things can happen.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

How Can Small Gestures Provoke Big Change?

Teaching with Contemporary Art

How Can Small Gestures Provoke Big Change?

Little changes in art classrooms can have a big impact. Revolutions come in all sizes.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Revamping Art Education for the Twenty-First Century

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Revamping Art Education for the Twenty-First Century

Do the new National Standards for Art Education support dynamic learning and twenty-first century artistic methods?

Teaching with Contemporary Art

What does it mean to be a responsible global citizen?

Teaching with Contemporary Art

What does it mean to be a responsible global citizen?

An eighth grade language arts class learns about personal and social responsibility through contemporary art.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Reflecting on the National Art Education Association’s Annual Conference

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Reflecting on the National Art Education Association’s Annual Conference

Art21 Senior Education Advisor and columnist Joe Fusaro summarizes the 2014 NAEA conference.

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Getting Beyond Good and Bad

Teaching with Contemporary Art

Getting Beyond Good and Bad

Art21 Educator Jack Watson on teaching students to delay judgement, and the “balancing act” involved in evaluating art.