Art Making and Meaning:
Understanding through Questions
Group Think and My Two Cents – Cultural and Personal Viewpoints
Questions for Understanding If you were thinking about making an artwork, how do you think an average person from your culture might understand or appreciate it? How might an individual’s personal life experiences affect how he or she responds to your work? Objectives Students recognize personal factors that can influence their viewpoints on art. Students recognize cultural factors that can influence their viewpoints on art. Activity Ideas for All Students Ask students to make lists of favorites (animals, colors, music, movies, foods, etc.). Explain that things we like are called our preferences and are an individual matter, including our preferences in art. We can each like whatever artworks we want. Next explain that judgments are different from preferences. Judgments are conclusions about what is good about an artwork. Explain that judgments can be seen as invitations by experts to notice qualities they have found worthwhile. Ask students to share occasions when they learned to like something after learning more about. Share your own experience of coming to appreciate an artwork more than you did at first glance after learning more about it. If your class is culturally diverse ask students to identify traditional favorite foods, music, events, etc. Lead a discussion of any situations when students have experienced unfamiliar “favorites” from another culture that may have seemed strange to them. As possible, ask students to bring in and talk about objects (craft objects, embroideries, boxes, holiday decorations, etc.) that are traditional in their culture. Activity Ideas for Art Students Display an artwork from a culture that is unfamiliar to most students in the class. Ask students to imagine that visitors (other than the artist) from that culture were visiting their class. Ask students to list questions they might ask of those visitors to help them better understand the artwork. Complementary Activities from Stories of Art Supplementary Online Lessons “Who Cares for Art” – Lesson Four: Many Viewpoints“Protest and Persuasion”??? “Celebrating Excellence in Ceramics” – Lesson One: Beyond Preference |