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Stage 6 - Years 11 &12
Visual Arts

Kids Art Lab Stage six activities support the NSW Board of Studies Outcomes, which are as follows:

Artmaking Objectives /Outcomes :Students will develop knowledge, skills & understanding of how they may represent their interpretations of the world in artmaking as an informed point of view.

Content	Preliminary course	HSC course
practice	A student: P1: explores the conventions of practice in artmaking	A student: H1: initiates and organises artmaking practice that is sustained, reflective and adapted to suit particular conditions
conceptual framework	P2: explores the rolesduck print and relationships between the concepts of artist, artwork, world and audience	H2: applies their understanding of the relationships among the artist, artwork, world and audience through the making of a body of work
frames	P3: identifies the frames as the basis of understanding expressive representation through the making of art	H3: demonstrates an understanding of the frames when working independently in the making of art
represent- ation	P4: investigates subject matter and forms as representations in artmaking	H4: selects and develops subject matter and forms in particular ways as representations in art- making
conceptual strength and meaning	P5: investigates ways of developing coherence and layers of meaning in the making of art	H5: demonstrates conceptual strength in the production of a body of work that exhibits coherence and may be interpreted in a range of ways
resolution	P6: explores a range of material techniques in ways that support artistic intentions	H6: demonstrates technical accomplishment, refinement and sensitivity appropriate to the artistic intentions within a body of work

Art Criticism and Art History Objectives/Outcomes

Students will develop knowledge, skills and understanding of how they may represent an informed point of view about the visual arts in their critical and historical accounts.

Content	Preliminary course	HSC course
practice	A student: P7: explores the conventions of practice in art criticism and art history	A student: H7: applies their understanding of practice in art criticism and art history
conceptual framework	P8: explores the roles and relationships between concepts of artist, artwork, world and audience through critical and historical investigations of art	H8: applies their understanding of the relationships among the artist, artwork, world and audience
frames	P9: identifies the frames as the basis of exploring different orientations to critical and historical investigations of art	H9: demonstrates an understanding of how the frames provide for different orientations to critical and historical investigations of art
represent- ation	P10: explores ways in which significant art histories, critical narratives and other documentary accounts of the visual arts can be constructed	H10: constructs a body of significant art histories, critical narratives and other documentary accounts of representation in the visual arts

I have created two PowerPoint Documents which are designed as foundation material for students. They contain assessment activities as well as additional websites which students can go to for further research. The first is a unit of work designed for preliminary students. As Modernism still has a major impact upon how we view and make art, it is important to provide students with this knowledge in year 11. I have created links to the PowerPoint Presentations as well as additional supporting documents.

MODERNISM

The impact this varied movement had upon artmaking practice is explored by close study of artists who were at the core of this exciting world. The Conceptual Framework focuses on the relationships between the artist -artwork, artist-audience, artwork -audience, artist-world.

The featured artist in this unit of work include Katherine Dreier, Marcel Duchamp, Wassily Kandinsky & Man Ray.

Modernism PowerPoint Presentation

NSW Quality Teaching Framework - Modernism

ART CRITICISM / CRITICAL WRITING ACTIVITY

DADA - CONTEMPORARY CRITICISM

Everyone knows that Dada was born after the outbreak of World War 1 in Zurich, where artists gathered to avoid military conscription in their own countries. And it is well documented that Max Ernst, Paul; Eluard and Otto Dix spent time in the trenches, so that Walter Benjamin’s take on Dada performance as a form of ballistics – “it hit the spectator like a bullet, it happened to him” – is not all rhetorical flourish.”

Jori Finkel, Art in America, June/July 2006

“In one of its most important innovations, Dada fashioned itself as a network, a web of connections…”

Leah Dickerman, The Dada seminars, 2005

“The subject of an appropriately shape-shifting exhibition seen in Paris, Washington and now New York, Dada was the 2O^th century’s most all-inclusive and far-reaching art movement, rejecting nothing, no matter how vulgar, provocative or insincere. Today’s art, in many ways, its product…this February the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., was home to the exhibition “Dada” with over 400 stingingly tragicomic items, many no less provocative today then they were first made. Images of wheels were abundant, mostly disengaged wheels incapable of getting anywhere, none more dramatic that Duchamp’s striped plates spinning like frightening, albeit hypnotic, propellers.”

Charles Stuckey, Art in America, June/July 2006

“Using painting, using art, to create a modus vivendi, a way of understanding life; that is, for the time being, of trying to make my life into a work of art itself, instead of spending my life creating works of art in the form of painting or sculptures. I now believe that you can quite readily treat your life, the way you breather, act, interact with other people, as a picture, a tableau vivant or a film scene so to speak. These are my conclusions now: I never set out to do this when I was twenty or fifteen, but I realize, after many years, that this was fundamentally what I was aiming to do.”

Marcel Duchamp,” Life is a game; life is art” The Art Newspaper, April 1993

CLASS ACTIVITY

"It is the Cultural Frame, which alerts the audience to the artist’s philosophy and intention by looking at the culture, which surrounds the artwork. This also applies to art historians and critics who must take into consideration the cultural expectations and influences on artists and artworks."

Students break into groups of four and create a list of words or themes that place the writings above in the CULTURAL FRAME. Once completed each group shares with the rest of the class their lists and the class creates a detailed mind map which emphasises key words or themes that signify the CULTURAL FRAME.

The quote above outlining the Cultural Frame is opened to class discussion then students individually write a paper discussing the statement, using the initial quotes for supporting arguments.

ICONS CASE STUDY

This case study focuses on the "icon", commencing with traditional Byzantine Greek and Russian icons. We look at the history of the icon and the ability of its audience to read the visual codes embedded within the artwork. We examine the meanings within "icons" through the structural frame

The influence of traditional icons upon modernist artists including Kasimir Malevich is explored with an emphasis on the cultural frame.

Iconoclast artist Marcel Duchamp is profiled as is his work L.A.A.H.Q (a commercial postcard of the Mona Lisa which Marcel Duchamp defaced with a drawn on moustache and a cheeky play on French language).

Culturally savvy artist Andy Warhol's iconic portraits of celebrities are analysed.

Icons PowerPoint Presentation

Critical Writing Activity - Icons