assessment || instructional resources: contemporary art and multicultural education

National Art Education Association

Instructional Resources: Contemporary Art and Multicultural EducationAuthor(s): Susan Cahan and Zoya KocurSource: Art Education, Vol. 47, No. 2, Assessment (Mar., 1994), pp. 25-33Published by: National Art Education AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3193451 .

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INSTRUCTIONAL

Contemporary Art and Multicultural Education

Houston Conwill, Joseph DePace and Estella Majozo Conwill, Rivers, 1990, brass and terrazzo floor, 20 x 40' with 12' cosmogram, collection of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture



CONTE1MPORARY ART ANtI MULTICULTURAL

EDUCATION I~Rl~e~ll~?fA APIIm~cm

Over the past decade the body of literature on multicultural art education in the United States has been growing. The range of perspectives is broad, from the "heroes and holidays" approach and "celebrations of diversity" to radical critiques of institutionalized racism, sexism, and classism within the education system. Yet within the movement for multicultural education, curriculum materials that address contemporary art are virtually absent. Most multicultural art texts, slide sets, and reproductions include art made "long ago" or "far away" - work that is historically or geographically distant from the present day United States, keeping at arms length questions pertaining to power relations in our own society.

Some teachers may shy away from contemporary art because it seems unfamiliar. Many are reluctant to introduce students to material which they themselves feel they have not mastered. This response is not unique to educators. As art critic and historian Lucy Lippard has pointed out, the field of contemporary art "has become mystified to the point where many people doubt and are even embarrassed by their responses.. .lYet the appropriateness of contemporary art to multicultural education cannot be overstated.

Over the last few years, a significant shift has emerged in the sensibilities and outlooks of artists and critics, producing what philosopher, theologian, and activist Comel West has referred to as a new kind of artist associated with a new "politics of difference."2 The features of this new cultural politics of difference are to challenge monolithic and homogeneous views of history in the name of diverse, multiple, and heterogeneous perspectives; to reject abstract, general, and universal pronouncements in light of concrete, specific, and particular realities. In this new art, issues of diversity and agency - the capacity and ability of all human beings - have been given a new weight and gravity.

The works presented here incorporate elements from mass media, popular culture, diverse artistic traditions to investigate history, politics, and everyday life. The artists-Houston Conwill, Joseph DePace, and Estella Conwill Majozo; Elizabeth Layton; Juan Sanchez; and Masami Teraoka-each in their own way demonstrate how art can serve a form of collective memory, individual expression, social criticism, and political struggle, as well as offering visual pleasure. The work of Juan Sanchez, for example, combines syncretic references to African and Christian religions; Puerto Rican and U.S. national symbols; Spanish and English texts; first-person narratives; photographs; and images from the mass media to subvert the notion of a monolithic American identity, while simultaneously locating causes of racial violence in the U.S.

When the goals of multicultural art education include inquiry into current social conditions, contemporary art is an indispensable resource.

NOTES 1Lucy Lippard. Mixed Blessings: New Art in Multicultural America. (New York: Pantheon, 1990), pp. 7-8. 2Comel West, 'The New Cultural Politics of Difference," in Out There: Marginalization and Contemporary Cultures, Russell

Ferguson, Martha Gever, Trinh T. Minh-ha, and Comel West, Eds. (New York and Cambridge: The New Museum of Contemporary Art and MIT Press, 1990), p. 19.

ART EDUCATION / MARCH 1994



HOUSTON CONWILL, JOSEPH DEPACE

AND ESTRLT A CONWILL MAJOZO Medium: Public Art Installation

Founded in New York, New York, 1985

We are an interdisciplinary team of Harlem-based collaborating artists concerned with the function of art in bringing meaning to our lives and in serving as a catalyst for social change. Estella Conwill Majozo is a poet, Joseph DePace is an architect, and Houston Conwill is a sculptor. We create site-specific public art installations that recognize the sacredness of a place, resonating with its history and rechoreographing history in the African Diaspora with an impulse towards freedom. Our works are intended to open the exclusivity of the historical canon to multiple perspectives, each ethnic, racial, and cultural group speaking for itself- a declaration of cultural interdependence. We are interested in the preservation and communication of wisdom and knowledge across generations and cultures and intend for our works to serve as vehicles for education, reversing stereotypes and presenting positive role models for our children.

We are also concerned with unearthing the spirituality buried in contemporary secular existence. Our works are both political and spiritual, syncretizing traditional African, Judeo-Christian, and Eastern religions, mythologies, and cosmologies, forming a synthesis of cross-cultural references.

Our works are inspired by African American Spirituals and Blues, which are in the oral tradition of the griot, a West African storyteller, shaman, musician and dancer. According to ethnomusicologist Bernice Reagon, the sacred texts of the Spirituals doubled as both prayers to God for deliverance from enslavement and as coded signal songs for escape on the Underground Railroad. Examples include StealAway ToJesus, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot and Follow The Drinking Gourd. The subversive and signifying texts, rhythms and rhymes of

the Blues sound the message of hope, affirming a belief system and a will to survive rooted in a "Blues" philosophy of joyous triumph over adversity.

We create maps of language that present cultural pilgrimages and metaphorical journeys of transformation that can be experienced as rites of passage through life and death to rebirth and resurrection, fostering greater cultural awareness, racial harmony, and understanding. They are composed from collaged and edited quotations from world music including Spirituals, Blues, Gospel, Soul, Jazz, Funk, Samba, Merengue, Reggae, Rock and Roll, Rap, and Freedom Songs in dialect, with critical voicings from speeches of heroic models of African American culture. Their prophetic and humanistic words reflect the values and aspirations of the culture - hope, wisdom, temperance, justice, and love - and function as both a critique and a healing, addressing issues of world peace, social justice, human rights, civil rights, rights of the physically challenged, freedom, equality, democracy, history, memory, cultural identity, loss, cultural diversity, multicultural education, pro-choice, public support for the arts, ecology, and caring. They also address the universal enemies of war, hatred, racism, oppression, classism, violence, bigotry, censorship, sickness, drug addiction, sexism, ageism, apartheid, homophobia, hunger, poverty, homelessness, AIDS, greed, imperialism, colonialism, militarism, historical and cultural amnesia, cross-cultural signifier for life, cleansing, healing, purification, and regeneration. In the Spirituals it signifies baptism, blessing, and renewal.

The timeless words of the culture's heroic models challenge us to break down barriers between people of diverse backgrounds, to build bridges of compassion, clarifying a common meeting ground for all humanity.

Our works are acts of faith.

MARCH 1994 / ART EDUCATION



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Juan Sanchez, NeoRican Convictions, 1989,oil, mixed media on canvas, 42 x 66", photo: Juan Sanchez

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ELIZABEIH IAYTON Medium: Drawing

Born: Wellsville, Kansas, 1909 Died 1993

When I took my first Contour drawing class at age 68 the teacher asked us to tell who we are and what we want to be called. I said, "My name is Elizabeth Layton, but everybody I know your age calls me Grandma." So I still sign my work Grandma Layton.

For most of my 83 years I've lived in Wellsville, a little town in a farming community in Kansas, near the center of the United States.

The people here had families who came to the United States three or four generations ago, mostly from Northern Europe. I felt somewhat cheated because we had few opportunities to know friends of other cultures. There was usually one family of Mexicans in town, otherwise no African Americans, Orientals, Native Americans, or other minorities.

It is a wonderful feeling to make art. I love doing it. I make art for my own satisfaction and quite often other people like it, too. That's a plus.

Art is very important to me. It puts my life in balance.

My art is my life as I see it and set it down in lines on paper. Everything I draw is very personal. In art the personal becomes the universal. I draw my feelings, and they are the same as your feelings. The same as the feelings of a stranger miles away. Common feelings connect us all.

'Write about what you know" is often given as a good rule for a writer. This same rule could apply to an artist. If the artist offers his own world, it enriches the world of his viewers.

I am an old woman - this is what I draw, because this is what I know best, along with my family and my surroundings.

When I want to draw a social issue I project myself into that situation, and use a self-portrait. I become Eliza fleeing on the ice with her child, from "Uncle Tom's Cabin." The feelings of that mother - fear, anger, determination - are the same as any mother would have.

My art is not traditional because of the method, Contour, that I use. When you draw by the Contour method you look at your subject, but never draw while looking at your paper. The result is a caricature, a cartoon.

JUAN SANCHEZ Medium: Painting, photography

Born in Brooklyn, New York, 1954 Lives in Brooklyn, New York

I am a second generation Puerto Rican born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. My parents migrated from Puerto Rico to New York in the early 1950s and settled in Brooklyn. We have always lived in predominantly African American and Puerto Rican communities. My first language is Spanish, and I began to learn English when I started going to elementary school. In the community where I live the language, food, religious mores, music, and attitudes come out of Puerto Rican roots. This is a community where people from Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo (the Dominican Republic), and other parts of Latin America can live and speak only the Spanish language without learning English.

The people have transformed these communities into

tiny Spanish speaking countries with all the comforts, problems, and contradictions that go along with it. My art is influenced by all this and more. I make art because it gives me a sense of self worth in defining who I am. It is my way of expressing and sharing my mind, heart, and soul with a broad public.

What informs my art is Puerto Rican, Latin American, and African history, politics, and culture. The subjects to which I am drawn are the things I experience on a daily basis. In making my art, I choose materials I can manipulate easily. I am very familiar with the photographic process as well as painting and drawing. Text, whether poetry, literature, history, or personal testimonies, also fascinates me and

ART EDUCATION / MARCH 1994



provides many possibilities for my art. The role of the artist in society is very complicated, but I

believe the artist should explore and get as close as possible to some form of truth. Humanity cannot survive without creative, artistic expression. Society has not yet been able to accept the artist as a productive, responsible, and important member. The artist is sometimes feared because she/he insists on expressing concerns society does not want to face.

The relationships between art and politics, art and religion, art and culture, and art and education can not be separated. They all influence and feed into one another. No government should dictate or censor art, since government has never been the true voice of the people of the United States.

My ideal audience are those people who are willing to see, feel, and think. People who are willing to face things that may even hurt for the sake of awareness and growth. My people, Puerto Ricans, are perhaps my most treasured audience because of the many fulfilling responses they have had to my work.

My work both embraces and breaks from traditions. I

think that many young people have taken to my art because I speak of things and experiences that came from my youth. The concerns expressed in my work are connected to young people's present reality, and their historical and cultural roots.

My work is not conceived with the museum or the gallery environment in mind. I create art that can be placed in an environment outside of the mainstream art circle because a great majority of my people do not go to museums and art galleries. The aesthetic and formal concerns in my paintings reflect the environment and experience of my people.

To be an artist is a very honorable and wonderful experience. One can express what's in one's mind and soul, and be a reflector of society. It takes much courage and honesty to be an artist. It also demands firm commitment and discipline. As an artist, you must develop an open mind. You must be knowledgeable about many human and world issues and figure out how they affect you. You must be an extremely caring and sensitive human being whose prime concern is to give and to share.

MASAMI TERAOKA Medium: Painting Born: Japan, 1936

Lives in Waimanalo, Hawaii

I come from Japan but have lived in the United States for 31 of my 56 years. I therefore have had the benefit of experiencing two distinctly different cultures.

I make art because I like to paint. I make art primarily to understand myself. Art is important because it is a method to learn about life, myself, and the world. Painting reflects my thoughts. If I don't paint, I feel sick. I also express my experiences through art in order to communicate with other people. I use aesthetics and humor to make the whole vision more accessible to the viewer. Social and political issues that I feel are undercurrents of changing values are my primary sources of subject matter. Issues such as pollution, the AIDS Crisis, and the aggressive Western fast food conquest of the globe inspire my imagination. It is important to me that I reflect the historical times in which I live. I am obsessed by where the world is going and what we will gain or lose along the way.

The contrast between the past and present in the cultures of Japan and America is the focal point of my work. There are two major sources that I draw on to express this theme: American Pop Art and Japanese Ukiyo-e or woodblock prints. These two seemingly divergent fields of art are, in actuality, close expressions of the same concept from two different worlds. The subject matter of both is popular culture.

Ukiyo-e woodblock prints are equivalent to posters or other mass produced art. Ukiyo-e was dominant in the Edo period in Japan, which corresponds roughly to the 17th to 19th centuries. Ukiyo-e reflect the affluent society of the later part of Edo Japan, a time that was dominated by the merchant class and a decadent lifestyle. Pop Art of the 1960s is one of the most uniquely American art forms. It represents a consumer oriented society. There is no other country like America when you look at the extent of our consumerism. To me the marriage of these two forms is an obvious way to

MARCH 1994 / ART EDUCATION



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combine the cultural influences I have felt in my life, and allows me to make comments on both cultures.

My new works average six by nine feet and are painted with watercolor on canvas sized with rabbit skin glue. I use watercolor as my primary medium because it allows me to recreate the feeling and textural effect of traditional woodblock prints. Actual woodblock printing on such a large scale would be impossible.

In a successful painting, statement and aesthetic go hand in hand. Neither one of these points can be neglected. The final goal of painting is to balance the two and therefore form an uplifting poetic statement. Although artists are inspired by many sources, the originality of art is in following one's own inner thoughts, feelings, and philosophy and in the interpretation of influences to one's own time in history.

These excerpts are from the forthcoming book ContemporaryArt and Multicultual Education (The New Museum of Contemporary Art and SUNY Press, 1995.) Designed for students and teachers in art, English, social studies, media, and related subjects, the book uses contemporary art as the centerpiece for interdiscipinary, multicultural education. Presenting works by 60 artists, lesson plans, and essays, the book is the first of its kind to provide both a theoretical foundation and practical resources for a critically-baseed approach to multicultural art education. For more information, please contact The Department of Education, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, 583 Broadway, New York, NY 10012, (212) 219-1222.

Susan Cahan is an art historian and museum educator who teaches and writes about contemporary art and public participation in cultural institutions. She is currently the Curator ofEducation at The New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York.

Zoya Kocur is an artist and museum educator who teaches photography and art, andfrequently lectures and conducts workshops on multicultural education and contemporary art. She currently directs The New Museum of ContemporaryArt's High SchoolArt Program.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Contemporary Art Howard Link. Waves and Plagues: The Art ofMasami Teraoka. (Honolulu

and San Francisco: The Contemporary Museum and Chronicle Books, 1988).

Lucy Lippard. Mixed Blessings: New Art in MulticulturalAmerica. (New York: Pantheon, 1990).

Middle America Arts Alliance: Through the Looking Glass: Drawings by Elizabeth Layton. Kansas City.

The Decade Show: Frameworks of Identity in the 1980s. (Exhibition catalogue) New York: Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Studio Museum in Harlem, 1990.

Juan Sanchez. Rican/Structed Realities, Confronted Evidence. (Exhibition catalogue) Binghamton: University Art Museum, SUNY Binghamton, 1991.

Multicultural Education and Critical Pedagogy Stanley Aronowitz and Henry Giroux. Postmodern Education: Politics,

Culture and Social Criticism. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1990).

James Banks and Cherry McGee Banks, Eds. Multicultural Education: Issues and Perspectives. (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1989).

Paulo Freire. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Trans. Myra Bergman Ramos. (New York: Continuum, 1970).

Carl Grant and Christine Sleeter. Turning on Learning: Five Approaches For Multicultural Teaching Plansfor Race, Class, Gender and Disability. (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1989).

Cultural Politics Don Adams and Arlene Goldbard. Crossroads: Reflections on the Politics of

Culture. (Talmage, CA: DNA Press, 1990). Guillermo Gomez-Pefia. 'The Multicultural Paradigm: An Open Letter to

the National Arts Community," High Performance 47 (Fall 1989): 18- 27.

David Trend. Cultural Pedagogy. (New York: Bergin & Garvey, 1992).

MARCH 1994 / ART EDUCATION N



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