JSTAE Number 15/16
1995/96
Editorial
Karen T. Keifer-Boyd
Social Action through Art: Diversity within Community
One way to look at the 1995-96 proposed social action through art theme is that issues of relevance continually emerge-that is the action itself. Social action as identified in these articles revolved around the issue of diversity. Some identified differences as an abrupt clash or confrontation, others as a negotiation between worlds. All were concerned that we critically examine the values embedded in images-whether in art history textbooks, everyday images surrounding us via entertainment systems, television, film, or computers; or in "fine" art.
Social action through art can stimulate a community of diverse responses. Within the covers of this journal you will find a range of views. We can learn from views that are very different from our own beliefs. You may agree with some studies and bristle as you read others. It is my hope that by reading different, even opposing, views within the same journal that you will engage in dialogue using the Social Theory Caucus newsletter as a vehicle. The address of the editor of the newsletter is on the inside cover of this journal. Dialogue is essential to social action. Without dialogue social action is not social. In this JSTAE volume, Bickley and Wolcott point out that dialogue is also a collaborative venture.
The first group of three articles involve technology and art education. Perhaps newer technologies make diversity more apparent than in the past when local community meant the people, customs, and objects physically surrounding home. Today, home may refer to one's homepage on the World Wide Web. You may seek communities closest to your interests and beliefs while navigating the Internet, but any search introduces numerous alternatives. Television, while still more monolithic than the Internet, provides more choices than I had in my childhood when there were only three channels available. Diversity is a reality. Universals are a myth. Social actions grapple with diversity, some to identify the imbalances, others to develop a place for differences to peacefully co-exist. For Politsky, an emphasis on differences undermines cultural stability and is the impetus for controversial art. For other authors in this volume, difference is necessary to expose disparate meanings for an interwoven richness to the fabric of life. Perhaps, with an awareness of differences there is a greater need for making connections between disparate ways and ideas. If meaning is a matter of difference in the Saussurian sense, as Politsky describes in her article, then difference is also what connects us. Cultural connections could be derived from diversity. Rather than the survival of the fittest in which competition is promoted, survival depends upon diversification in which a community of differences work together, even with contradictory purposes and varied worldviews.
Duncum advocates critical engagement with the numerous digital and electronic images that surround our daily life. He urges that art educators utilize the contextualizing practices of media educators to develop socially critical consciousness. Media educators are concerned with the desires and motivation of audiences, and how they attend to images. For example, multiple exposure, ra ther than a singular prolonged engagement, characterize the way electronic and digital images are presented and perceived.
Johnson describes the contradictory worlds inhabited by the computer artist. The conventions of computer science and the conventions of art are at odds. The gulf that has separated art and science is about to flood fertile soils into both. While Johnson and Duncum speak of differences having a betwixt and between, Politsky identifies a ll10re abrupt clash of differences.
Politsky uses mythic criticism to interpret the appropriation of ancient religious myths and symbols by contemporary visual and performance artists. Mythic criticism, developed by post-Jungian theorists, is a psychoanalytic process of identifying culturally constructed archetypal images. According to post-Jungian theory there is a human need to identify and represent shared life patterns, but these patterns are culturally specific. Politsky provides several examples to support her premise that the socia-political postmodern world view has led some artists to appropriate ancient archetypal rituals and images in order to question adherence to religious practices no longer connected to a communal spiritual orientation. Politsky argues that altering, substituting, or restoring established religious symbols is an attempt to stabilize the seemingly unstable postmodern world.
Social action revealed by the images published in The Gallery are examples of the intention and success in activating community. A brief editorial precedes The Gallery. The Gallery is situated between Politsky's article on a clash between the sacred and profane in art and Gaudelius' and Moore's article on violent images of women; these follow jagodzinski's article on violence, youth, and media hype. Through a recognition of different world views that unsettle the status quo, the middle group of articles bridge technology issues with the final group of four articles which concern gender and art education. The articles in the middle of the journal overlap technology and gender issues but also create their own emphasis by identifying uncompromising differences such as stereotypes and misunderstandings between groups of people. As art educators critically engage in issues of technology and gender in relation to the arts, will they desire a compromise, and if not, what are the alternatives?
In the last group of four articles, one topic that arises in both Bolin's article and Bickley and Wolcott's article concerns H. W. Janson's textbook, The History of Art. Bolin argues that art history survey textbooks have not included women artists in a way that represents their contributions. Bolin explains how
Anthony Janson's art history survey textbook has marginalized women artists.
True to their belief that collaborative activity among scholars and practitioners in diverse fields could develop more inclusive aesthetic theory and support a broader range of art production, Bickley and Wolcott collaborated on writing their article and included personal communications with women in the arts from the United States, Scandinavia, and Italy. Bickley and Wolcott argue that feminist scholars have changed the discipline of art history and art criticism. The authors advocate a phenomenological critical approach to art in which historical knowledge is based in both male and female experiences of art and artmaking. This approach emphasizes art objects within their physical and social context without attempting to explain or politicize them. Bickley and Wolcott suggest that collaboration between cognitive scientists, anthropologists, psychologists, and art scholars and practitioners may help consolidate the various feminist approaches into a contextually-based and pluralistic theory of art. Bickley and Wolcott advocate the development of theory and practice in art that not only includes the social and political context of artmaking, but also seeks understanding that integrates both male and female phenomenological experiences of art.
The journal concludes with two book reviews. One book reviewer suggests that readers of Warrior for Gringostroika: Essays, Performance Texts, and Poetry by G6mez-Pefia (1993) may be moved to action. The other review on Frida's Fiestas, contextualizes art with the substance of life-food-something shared by all in a variety of ways.
Liz Hoffman served as editorial consultant. She generously gave me advice and encouragement; and thoughtfully edited three articles (i.e., Bolin's, jagodzinski's, and Gaudelius' and Moore's). She introduces these articles in her editorial and identifies youth as a then1e that emerged in this group. Together, the nine authors and nine artists in this volume represent social action as they present the creative potentials of sparks, hot fires, and changing waters.
Elizabeth Hoffman
Last week I was in a class with twenty-two 4th-graders, discussing how quilts can be like time capsules, linking people and place to a particular time in one's life. Using the heart-in-hand motif, students traced their hands on cloth, attached cutout hearts on which they wrote their names and the date and then embellished their (cloth) hands with embroidery. The hands were placed on a larger fabric to create a quilt that will be used as a class portrait. We talked about the heart-in-hand motif, which is prevalent in quilt history. We decided that, basically, the motif means that you discover in your heart what you want to do, then you use your hands to make it happen.
Anxiously awaiting the responses to the theme for this year's journal-" social action through art" -I envisioned manuscripts from artists, educators, and scholars who were "making it happen." In readying three of the manuscripts for publication, 1 discovered that what 1 thought was a seductive "call for physical action" was interpreted in a much broader sense. The authors' expansion of the theme coupled with the complexity of issues presented make JSTAE 15/16 an exceptional Issue.
I found the emergent topic of negative attitudes toward youth particularly significant. I attended lectures by two powerful, eloquent women this past year-Angela Davis and Anita Hill. Though speaking divergently on a variety of topics, they both expressed similar concerns about today's youth. Their focus was not aimed at the so-called Generation X, but at the Baby Boomers, who as a group have failed to not only understand youth but allow them their own voice.
jan jagodzinski addresses the "youth crisis" by suggesting that the "moral majority" are portraying (through popular culture media) teens in crisis (e.g., teen crime, delinquency, pregnancy, suicide, Satan worship, etc.) to maintain their own hegemony. Specifically, he is concerned that "the issues that surround violence veil broader socio-economic concerns." jan's ideas caution us to thoroughly investigate the perceived issue before we propose social action. We need to first be aware if we are persuaded to act by the manipulation of popular culture venues (e.g., film, TV, comic books, talk-shows). He reminds us of the power of these media and the need to question the desires of those who hold the power.
jan also reports on the emergence of II girlie culture" and its German counterpart Emma Tochter. How shall we attend to this fresh, youthful voice in a "postfeminist world"? Images of women are in flux and can be explored through negotiation. Paul Bolin asks us to take action by evaluating classroom materials by examining images and depictions of women in major art history texts such as H. W. Janson's History of Art (with subsequent revisions by Anthony F. Janson). Not only does he question omissions from this text, but he analyzes the language used to describe the work of those women artists who are included.
Yvonne Gaudelius and Juliet Moore carry this discussion into the classroom by encouraging educators to juxtapose images from customary slide reproductions such as The Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus with contemporary fen1inist artists' works that address violence against women. They report the urgent need for the adoption of this type of classroom practice by comparing divergent class responses of students using feminist criticism rather than formalist models. I ponder what would happen if Aeon Flux (t\1TV) or Tank Girl (comic book/ film heroine) met Titian's Rape of Europa on the college slide screen; these are provocative pairings to consider!
Many JSTAE readers are art educators associated with academic institutions. We share ecocritic Cheryll Glotfelty's fear that some "scholarship remains academic in the sense of 'scholarly to the point of being unaware of the outside world' (American Heritage Dictionary)."! Pedagogy that promotes social action in the "outside world" is being practiced. For example, recently a week-end seminar titled Power and Place was held on the University of Oregon campus.2 The planning committee was a collaborative effort: Doug Blandy (Arts and Administration Program), Stan Jones (Landscape Architecture), Fred Tepfer (Campus Planning), Polly Welch (Architecture), and Linda Zimmer (Interior Architecture). As part of the focus on inclusivity and universal design, teams of student identified a space on the University of Oregon campus that they deemed not inclusive, and implemented an intervention/installation that addressed the workshop focus. Through artistic expression, students portrayed concepts including gender differences in relation to power, metaphors for barriers, perceptions of individual differences, self-definition, sensory perception, sites for multiple identity, and play. Evaluations by participants were overwhelmingly positive. This type of experiential learning challenges us to consider other configurations of this year's JST AE theme (e.g., art through social action).
Finally, I congratulate all of the authors and especially Karen for a job well done. One always receives more than one gives when working on a project of this type. I look forward to continued discussion at our next caucus.
Notes
1. Glotfelty, C. (1996). Introduction. In C. Glotfelty & H. Fromm (Eds.), The Ecocriticism Reader (p. xv). Athens, GA/ London: The University of Georgia Press.
2. Contact Doug Blandy at the University of Oregon in Eugene, OR for more information about this unique seminar.