The Impact of Technology and Post Modern Art on Studio Art Education

What I read

In this article, the author—the acting dean of Pratt in 1984—describes changes that he perceives in the world of art as it moves beyond modernism. These changes challenge the fundamentals of how studio art has been taught, and will force changes to art curricula and learning methods.

The author first describes four trends that he perceives in the art space that will impact how studio art is taught. These include a development of a post-modernist aesthetic, the availability of video equipment, the use of a computer, and a new model of the business of art, as related to the gallery structure.

Before describing these ideas in detail, the author then describes some of the ways modern art is being discussed by others in popular journals. These other authors indicate that postmodernism is a regression and is generally not to be considered as a real first-class approach to art. Different types of post-modern movements are described, such as conceptual work that challenges media, medium, content, and display. The author uses these examples not necessarily to form judgement on the new aesthetic styles that are emerging, but to indicate how different they are from those that have historically been taught, learned, and respected. Those modern styles have been taught in traditional Bauhaus style, typically with the addition of figure-drawing, and emerged as a change from traditional renaissance styles of learning. The author then indicates the challenge of teaching these new approaches; “if drawing is no longer such a basic skill in art making, then the long-established primacy of drawing in the curriculum… must be reconsidered. Likewise, if painting is no longer done on the traditional canvas stretched over a wooden frame, but takes place on the gallery walls… then the teaching of painting will change.”

Next, the author focuses on the introduction of video and computers into the art space. New technology “makes a new vision (or aesthetic) possible,” but there is no historical precedent for how to address these things, and students typically learn by “working thru” art history. Additionally, there is little software available for on-technical artists to leverage the technology.

The last large change that will impact studio education is the shift towards art as a gallery-style business, one where breaking into elitism and gaining skills in entrepreneurship are critical for being a successful artist. These are “superstructures” that, like a large-scale change in aesthetics, should equally impact how students are educated. Additionally, as art appreciation in a gallery becomes more of an event or occurrence rather than an object, artists need to be educated in how to leverage a space itself as part of their approach to making things.

Ultimately, the author indicates that these four changes will have large impact on art education, and while the change is not yet understood, educators will need to adapt.

What I learned and what I think

I selected this article to read because of the title, and the title is broadly indicative of the contents, but I did not expect the way “studio art education” is used with an emphasis on “studio art”—that the discussion is about a type of artistic way of working, rather than studio-based education. It raises an interesting point, although one I’m not really interested in pursuing yet: how broad the language of “studio” can be, even beyond the idea of it being a place, a context, and a culture.

What I continue to take from these articles that are older is the way we view present-day changes as massive, as unprecedented in their looming (and often negative) impact on art and design and society, yet that’s been true over and over. And maybe the change has always and continually been massive, but it also has been rationalized and integrated, and the transformation sort of diffused back into the texture of the world. It also always seems that these changes happen so fast and without clues that they are coming, but that’s always only in the moment and not in hindsight. The change in video as a medium and a tool, for example, is already being commercialized in 1984 (the author references Kodak), and appears to be on the verge of disrupting the art world, but it still followed a long, slow burn towards TikTok.

The same is true on the entrepreneurial side, even presented as new in the article, while the entrepreneurial nature of an artist is as old as art and the same elitism existed as far back as there has been elitism (always.) But the context of these things impacts the way they are presented.

It is fascinating, though, to see that studio art education appears to have ignored a lot of these things at a foundations level. The specialization through majors is the big change, but the education in the Bauhaus basics, the context of studio learning, and the struggle of educators to grapple with technology is still the same. There’s something about learning foundations in the way it is still taught that’s clearly compelling. Maybe it’s nostalgia, or lack of imagination, or fear of change, or maybe it really is the “most” effective way of learning art and design. I see all of the benefits and magic of it, but I can’t believe that we’ve landed at the best way of doing things and it will never improve. It’s worth exploring many different views of how art and design could be taught in a divergent way, as futures, even without the intent of pursuing them. Maybe I’ll follow that thread a little.

It also didn’t register with me, until I just googled for the author by name, that I read a previous article from him and had similar responses. I should pay more attention to names.