Themes in Art: Critiques, Challenges, and Transformations

Just as a strong understanding of art history can lead to innovative artistic practices, a more thorough knowledge of artistic materials, practices, and techniques can lead to a nuanced understanding of the history of art. This paper will examine an upper-level art history course, Themes in Art: Critiques, Challenges, and Transformations, that was developed with the purpose of placing artistic engagement, innovation, and creativity at the center of the lesson plan. This seminar, offered to undergraduate art majors and non-majors for the first time in the fall of 2019, investigates the diversity of global visual art practices through thematic topics. Students will examine how practices, beliefs, systems, and narratives have come under critique and are challenged by visual artists as well as how alternatives to these practices, beliefs, systems, and narratives proposed by visual artists can lead to transformation. Themes in Art is a speaking-intensive seminar that is divided into three sections: Constructs, Engagement, and Narrative. Within each section, students will follow a design thinking process to create artworks that directly relate to course lectures and readings; they will engage in brainstorming sessions and peer critiques as they develop each project. Students will conclude each section with presentations that examine their thought processes behind their work, consider how they have engaged in a dialogue with contemporary artists, and reflect on how their work can be developed in the future. This paper will explore the development, implementation, and outcomes of Themes in Art and the students’ reception of the course.