Art in the 21st Century

While understanding that an art educator’s task is to inculcate the skills of mixing blue and yellow to make green and help a student find the center of a lump of clay on a wheel. Sometimes its enough just to have a student concentrate and work quietly on a project.

But still, what des it mean to be an artist in the 21st Century? What is the art that is being created now? Arguably the art that today’s students will have as a point of departure in building their own style.

I have been watching a wonderful series on PBS called Art21: Art in the 21st Centrury
This series profiles the artists in fifteen minute segments covering their work in the context of the show (ecology, spirituality, paradox and so on). These segments are ideal for the short time available for the studio art class. Many of the segments are cross curriculum, bringing in connections to biology, physics and mathematics. The interviews are intelligent and the artists are articulate in explaining the work, their goals as artists and what they were working to accomplish The thoughtful dialog of the artists is compelling: the use of language is wonderful.
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This is not art history; the history of art is important but this is art as being practiced today. Art, perhaps, contemporary with the concerns of today’s students. Art about immigration, ecology, excessive consumption and protest. In one episode, the artist Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle discusses his origins as a young man in constant movement between the US, Bogotá and Madrid and the influence of being in constant movement, at home and an alien simultaneously wherever he was. This same episode profiled the artist Ursula von Rydingsvard, her family first suffering under the occupation of Poland, fleeing the Soviets at the end of the Second World War and ultimate being forced to flee Europe but finding a home in the United States. Both of these stories caused me to feel deeply patriotic.

The PBS website for educators is a brilliant resource, there are teaching guides, slides for download, project plans and a wonderful resource for uploading students’ work. The website contains short streaming videos of the profiles, DVD’s are also available for a very modest price, as little as $ 22 from Amazon.

The current museum profile from ArtPoints is the Seattle Art Museum and after watching the Art21 profile of Cai Guo-Qiang and his pyrotechnic art, I was astonished and very pleased to see his piece “Inopportune: Stage One” frm the series filling the reception area.

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Read our January Issue: Museum Field Trips
Read our November essay: Art Materials Safety
Read our September essay: Hyperrealism
Read our August essay: Art is Work
Read our April essay: Teaching Creativity
Read our December essay: New Art Resources on the Web
Read our November essay: Change the World - One Work of Art at a Time
Read our October essay: Primitive Art is Not Art
Read our August essay: Shadow as Metaphor in Art
Read our June essay: PBS' How Art Made the World
Read our May essay: What College Art Teachers Expect from High School Students
Read our April essay: Technological Innovations in Art Educations
Read our March essay: Does Handwriting have a Future?
Read our February essay: Copyright and trademark for the art educator
Read our January essay: Counseling your students on choices for Higher Education
Read our December essay: Why Teaching Visual Art is now a Necessity
Read our November essay: Teaching Collage as Social Critic
Read our October essay: The Place of the Body in Education
Read our September essay: The Ways Artists Support Themselves
Read our August essay: Why students should copy the great works
Read our July essay: Hidden Clues in Works of Art
Read our June essay: The Mathematics of Art
Read our May essay: The Importance of School Art Competitions
Read our January essay : Art History and the Internet
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