Spencer Lecture: James Elkins & Types of Knowing - Can Art be Taught?
This lecture looks at what we might describe as the ‘middle ground’ position of James Elkin’s in debates over art and design education. We will relate this to a variety of art-education and art-research positions. Elkin’s is a painter turned art historian who for the most part likes to keeps theory and practice separate.
Elkins has written some provocative, slightly sceptical texts, such as ‘Why painting cannot be taught’ and ‘Artists with PhD’s’ (with an implied question mark at the end) and ‘On Pictures and the Word that Fail Them’. Whilst celebrating the transformative or ‘alchemic’ practice of art production, Elkins has been critical of the close alliance of practice and research (which founds the idea of practice-based research). Elkins sees his art practice and art criticism as operating in very different registers. He separates his own work in terms of theory and practice, but also suggests that critics and historians should ‘learn to paint’ (and stop assuming that there is a ‘total meaning’ to any given work, or attempting to see semiotic significance in every random mark)
Elkins suggests that "we know very little about what we do" in the art classroom. He positions artistic practice as a valuable but broadly irrational activity that sits uncomfortably with more orderly practices of research and critique (although we will explore his position critically, positioning it as a response to a particularly design-led position on practice-based research).
Why art cannot be taught.
Conversations
Student/ tutor discussions- rarely followed through to the end
They are ways of not coming to terms with a range of fundamental difficulties- a way of acknowledging complex issues
the low-level intensity duration of our conversation provide a way of carrying on with our work
Relationship of art to wider communities
The assumption that art is communicative of anything generalisable meets with difficulties
Wider public often sceptical of art funding- Art often critical of the status quo
Is art really made for a ‘smaller community’ of artists?
Art education attempts to foster creativity/ innovation/ the new
most work, by definition, must be mediocre (normal distribution curve)limitation of successful (contemporary) practitioners output of art schools always looks interesting derivative when seen retrospective.
Criticism of these categories by postmodernist theorists
They are ways of not coming to terms with a range of fundamental difficulties- a way of acknowledging complex issues
Art as open concept (Morris Weitz, 1956)
don’t ask ‘what is art?’ as ‘what kind of a concept is art?’
emphasis upon growth/ complexification -In contemporary art schools media based departments (sculpture photography) mingle with idea or discipline-based departments (visual studies, criticism, liberal arts)
Elkins: Artists mix and match indiscriminately
2 kinds of pluralism-
Ordering of discipline/material/media practices does not matter what is important is how materials/technologies are used: meaning/production/context/intention/politics
Material pluralists - each medium is its own message - unique and incomparable
Departments remain structured- student builds bridges - debates around ‘core curriculum’
freedom of teaching (promotes change)
Absolutist teaching (one and the same for all)
Relative teaching- respond to surrounding culture/ changing needs
Dewey- student centred curriculum- was intended to be pluralistic and foster personal growth- This agenda can become very narrow in some contexts.
Theories
In the context of art, enthusiasm commitment, passion, responsiveness sympathy are important parts of teaching.
Art can be taught but nobody knows quite how -Importance of environment/ relationship- linking cancer to certain foods.
Art can be taught but few students become outstanding artists- great artists have often dropped out of institutions.
What can be taught?
Criticism/ theory/ philosophy
How long to get along in the art world (professional practise)- sophists -Visual acuity (Bauhaus)-Technique
Elkins: teaching is actually directed towards the reasons that we value art.
Complicated questions of expression, control, self-knowledge meaning
These vague/nebulous concept- depends on nonverbal learning as opposed to rules-
John Dewey, Gilbert Ryle, Gilles Deleuze, Donald Schon, Michel Polanyi
Critiques- the brit as a mode a assessment
The irrationality of critiques epitomises the irrationality of art teaching (and artistic practice)
The bit as a form of psychodrama
Formation and negotiation of tutor opinions
Emotionally charged
Options
Confrontation
makes tutors jobs hard/ can go badly wrong
Options- silence- lets tutors thought form
Options- positive mediation- explore concept of lightness from kitsch
Elkins emphasises Freudian dimension to the crit situation
Legalistic frame
Psychoanalytic frame (seduction)— extends this into the structure of art school teaching purse — Note how the subject of repression infiltrates life drawing classes, as well as the crit in general — Related quasi- noumenal categories such as ideology, unconscious, semiotics, are played out in the studio framework
Compare Elkins on painting
“It (painting) is a kind of immersion in substances, a wonder and a delight in their unexpected shapes and feels. When nothing much is known about the world, everything is possible, and painters watch their paints very closely to see exactly what they will do. Even though there is no contemporary language for that kind of experience, the alchemists already had names for it centuries ago. They knew several dozen varieties of the material prima, the place where the work starts, and their terms can help us understand there are different ways of beginning the work. They had names for their transmutations, and those can help give voice to the many metamorphoses painters try to make in paint.”
Histories
Interested in education history- the institution place of art/ art school and the relationship between theory and practice
Late 1700s-1800: Romanticism- Reject uniformity- seek special qualities and particular talents- reject categories- art should be living and not something dissected-
Impact on contemporary art schools-
We still value a loose/ free investigation of meaning (not analytic precision)
We still believe that artists should be independent of the state (critique the state/ not be commissioned by royalty)
Tutors should cultivate student individuality- not conforms to stylist norms
Individual subjectivity troubles the idea that art can be taught (beyond technique)- no universal rules/ nothing to have in common.
Bauhaus 1919-1933-
Is there a Tabula Rasa? (the idea of the mind as a blank slate)- emphasis upon perceptual experimentation coupled with commitment to universal principles
To increase sensitivity to phenomena (to learn to see)
Belief in (formal and universal) ‘rudiments’ of practice.- Is postmodern practice well served by this belief?
Deweyan (pragmatic) resistance to theory- Focus on experience/ exploration- Fundamental contradiction of Bauhaus- experiential subjectivity/ universality.
Pre-Bauhaus (pre-1919) academies - early attempts to balance THEORY and PRACTICE
Math/ perspective/ proportion/ harmony/ euclidean geometry.
Problems
Produces Decorum- calm ‘middle of the road works’ that is at odds with the dramatic effects of both modernism and postmodernism
Idealising a ‘golden age’ of art rejecting the contemporary and academically combining historical elements to form new art- No political/ situation/ contextual component
Perfect Proportion + decorum- No distortion- not too fast, not too slow- no emphasis on originality
Focus upon ‘Ideal form’ and peculiarities/ flaws of a subject form are alien to our thinking-
Grace no longer thought to be expressive to the Devine-
we do not operate with a Platonic- idealistic - theory of forms.
Elkins has written some provocative, slightly sceptical texts, such as ‘Why painting cannot be taught’ and ‘Artists with PhD’s’ (with an implied question mark at the end) and ‘On Pictures and the Word that Fail Them’. Whilst celebrating the transformative or ‘alchemic’ practice of art production, Elkins has been critical of the close alliance of practice and research (which founds the idea of practice-based research). Elkins sees his art practice and art criticism as operating in very different registers. He separates his own work in terms of theory and practice, but also suggests that critics and historians should ‘learn to paint’ (and stop assuming that there is a ‘total meaning’ to any given work, or attempting to see semiotic significance in every random mark)
Elkins suggests that "we know very little about what we do" in the art classroom. He positions artistic practice as a valuable but broadly irrational activity that sits uncomfortably with more orderly practices of research and critique (although we will explore his position critically, positioning it as a response to a particularly design-led position on practice-based research).
Elkins has written some provocative, sceptical texts, such as ‘Why Art Cannot be Taught’ and ‘Artists with PhD’s’ (with an implied question mark at the end) and ‘On Pictures and the Words that Fail Them’
Has also been a prominent 'middle ground' voice in the debate concerning he legitimacy of practice-based research - art provides a unique, highly specialised way of knowing the world and engaging with it, that has little to do with the rational forms of knowing/being that underpin the traditional idea of the university
Has also been a prominent 'middle ground' voice in the debate concerning he legitimacy of practice-based research - art provides a unique, highly specialised way of knowing the world and engaging with it, that has little to do with the rational forms of knowing/being that underpin the traditional idea of the university
Why art cannot be taught.
Conversations
Student/ tutor discussions- rarely followed through to the end
They are ways of not coming to terms with a range of fundamental difficulties- a way of acknowledging complex issues
the low-level intensity duration of our conversation provide a way of carrying on with our work
Relationship of art to wider communities
The assumption that art is communicative of anything generalisable meets with difficulties
Wider public often sceptical of art funding- Art often critical of the status quo
Is art really made for a ‘smaller community’ of artists?
Art education attempts to foster creativity/ innovation/ the new
most work, by definition, must be mediocre (normal distribution curve)limitation of successful (contemporary) practitioners output of art schools always looks interesting derivative when seen retrospective.
Criticism of these categories by postmodernist theorists
They are ways of not coming to terms with a range of fundamental difficulties- a way of acknowledging complex issues
Art as open concept (Morris Weitz, 1956)
don’t ask ‘what is art?’ as ‘what kind of a concept is art?’
emphasis upon growth/ complexification -In contemporary art schools media based departments (sculpture photography) mingle with idea or discipline-based departments (visual studies, criticism, liberal arts)
Elkins: Artists mix and match indiscriminately
2 kinds of pluralism-
Ordering of discipline/material/media practices does not matter what is important is how materials/technologies are used: meaning/production/context/intention/politics
Material pluralists - each medium is its own message - unique and incomparable
Departments remain structured- student builds bridges - debates around ‘core curriculum’
freedom of teaching (promotes change)
Absolutist teaching (one and the same for all)
Relative teaching- respond to surrounding culture/ changing needs
Dewey- student centred curriculum- was intended to be pluralistic and foster personal growth- This agenda can become very narrow in some contexts.
Theories
In the context of art, enthusiasm commitment, passion, responsiveness sympathy are important parts of teaching.
Art can be taught but nobody knows quite how -Importance of environment/ relationship- linking cancer to certain foods.
Art can be taught but few students become outstanding artists- great artists have often dropped out of institutions.
What can be taught?
Criticism/ theory/ philosophy
How long to get along in the art world (professional practise)- sophists -Visual acuity (Bauhaus)-Technique
Elkins: teaching is actually directed towards the reasons that we value art.
Complicated questions of expression, control, self-knowledge meaning
These vague/nebulous concept- depends on nonverbal learning as opposed to rules-
John Dewey, Gilbert Ryle, Gilles Deleuze, Donald Schon, Michel Polanyi
Critiques- the brit as a mode a assessment
The irrationality of critiques epitomises the irrationality of art teaching (and artistic practice)
The bit as a form of psychodrama
Formation and negotiation of tutor opinions
Emotionally charged
Options
Confrontation
makes tutors jobs hard/ can go badly wrong
Options- silence- lets tutors thought form
Options- positive mediation- explore concept of lightness from kitsch
Elkins emphasises Freudian dimension to the crit situation
Legalistic frame
Psychoanalytic frame (seduction)— extends this into the structure of art school teaching purse — Note how the subject of repression infiltrates life drawing classes, as well as the crit in general — Related quasi- noumenal categories such as ideology, unconscious, semiotics, are played out in the studio framework
Compare Elkins on painting
“It (painting) is a kind of immersion in substances, a wonder and a delight in their unexpected shapes and feels. When nothing much is known about the world, everything is possible, and painters watch their paints very closely to see exactly what they will do. Even though there is no contemporary language for that kind of experience, the alchemists already had names for it centuries ago. They knew several dozen varieties of the material prima, the place where the work starts, and their terms can help us understand there are different ways of beginning the work. They had names for their transmutations, and those can help give voice to the many metamorphoses painters try to make in paint.”
Histories
Interested in education history- the institution place of art/ art school and the relationship between theory and practice
Late 1700s-1800: Romanticism- Reject uniformity- seek special qualities and particular talents- reject categories- art should be living and not something dissected-
Impact on contemporary art schools-
We still value a loose/ free investigation of meaning (not analytic precision)
We still believe that artists should be independent of the state (critique the state/ not be commissioned by royalty)
Tutors should cultivate student individuality- not conforms to stylist norms
Individual subjectivity troubles the idea that art can be taught (beyond technique)- no universal rules/ nothing to have in common.
Bauhaus 1919-1933-
Is there a Tabula Rasa? (the idea of the mind as a blank slate)- emphasis upon perceptual experimentation coupled with commitment to universal principles
To increase sensitivity to phenomena (to learn to see)
Belief in (formal and universal) ‘rudiments’ of practice.- Is postmodern practice well served by this belief?
Deweyan (pragmatic) resistance to theory- Focus on experience/ exploration- Fundamental contradiction of Bauhaus- experiential subjectivity/ universality.
Pre-Bauhaus (pre-1919) academies - early attempts to balance THEORY and PRACTICE
Math/ perspective/ proportion/ harmony/ euclidean geometry.
Problems
Produces Decorum- calm ‘middle of the road works’ that is at odds with the dramatic effects of both modernism and postmodernism
Idealising a ‘golden age’ of art rejecting the contemporary and academically combining historical elements to form new art- No political/ situation/ contextual component
Perfect Proportion + decorum- No distortion- not too fast, not too slow- no emphasis on originality
Focus upon ‘Ideal form’ and peculiarities/ flaws of a subject form are alien to our thinking-
Grace no longer thought to be expressive to the Devine-
we do not operate with a Platonic- idealistic - theory of forms.