Crossing Borders/Breaking Boundaries 2000:

A Multidisciplinary Institute for Arts Educators

 
 
 

Conflict in the Arts

Teacher: Kevin Miller
Arts Discipline: Visual Arts
Grade Level: High School
Team: E
Topic: Considering the Postmodern

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UNIT: Conflict in Postmodernism: Destructured, Decentered, Dehumanized!
LESSON: "The Exquisite Corpse."
DATE:

TEAM WARM-UP: What do you need to know?

  1. Describe a "conflict" that has occurred from your own experience.
  2. Define "modern" and specifically identify 3 "modern" pieces of art. Use the Resource Center.
  3. In your own words, write a one sentence definition for the antecedent, "post."

(Project): Pick a Subject Slip provided by Mr "K. " Keep your tablemates and others in the dark about the exact nature of your subject for your drawings today. Gather various markers and 5 pieces of
8 1/2xll paper. Have magic mending tape at your tables, please.



STUDENT OBJECTIVES:

  1. Students will understand the definition ofthe word "conflict" and be able to use it to help themselves understand its relationship in Postmodernism
  2. Students will demonstrate a basic knowledge of the essential definitions for modernism and post-.
  3. Students will consistently address the task using purposeful and accurate thinking, execution and assessment.
  4. Students will know what, why, & how as attainable goals in their efforts toward understanding Postmodernism.

    ESSENTIAL CURRICULUM:

    1. Outcome One: Perceiving and Responding--Aesthetic Education. The student will demonstrate the ability to perceive, interpret, and respond to ideas, experiences, and the environment through the visual arts.
    2. Outcome Two: Historical, Cultural, and Social Contexts.The student will demonstrate an understanding of the visual arts as a basic aspect of history andhuman experience.
    3. Outcome Three: Creative Expression and Production. The student will demonstrate the ability to organize knowledge and ideas for expression in the production of art.
    4. Outcome Four: Aesthetic Criticism. The student will demonstrate the ability to identify, analyze, and apply criteriafor making visual aesthetic judgments.

BACKGROUND: A group of artists in Paris, France, used a popular collective artistic activity as a fun,social element for their group get-togethers. The "shared" drawings they produced were typically made after a fine dinner, over brandy and coffee, or concocted after a luncheon usually held on a rainy, dreary afternoon to raise the creative spirits of the artists. These artists were known as Surrealists (define) and contributed to the modernist and subsequent postmodernist periods of art. This collaborative creative activity is typical of all groups of artists ... musicians, actors, dancers as well as visual artists, and was especially true for the Surrealists as they were joined by many artists from other disciplines for this social endeavor where they shared ideas, knowledge, contacts, and social comradeship.



This fun, social collective artistic activity became known as "The Surrealist Drawing Game" or "Cadavre Exquis," (The Exquisite Corpse!). As a game, it served two playfully serious purposes. The first was simply the fun, social aspects. The second was to develop and explore the subconscious portions of the mind as a tool for collective expression. This is the way it was done: The participants would take a long piece of paper and fold it into as many divisions as there were artists ... usually five or six to a drawing. Starting at the top of the sheet on the first folded division, one artist would draw a head and then pass it on to their neighbor who would continue the drawing of the figure, adding adjoining parts of the body downward in each of the next divisions. They would refold the paper each time before passing it on to hide the drawings from the other artists. The process was repeated around the table until all the folded surfaces of the long piece of paper were filled. The strange, funny, mischievous result was a composite figure drawing, typically "weird" in appearance and frequently remarkable in the coherence of its representation.

CHALLENGE ACTIVITY-. After picking your subject slip from Mr "K," you will draw the suggested figure onthe five pieces of 8 1/2x11 paper, positioned vertically one under the others. Once you have completed your drawing, you will "mix & match" the individual pieces with other drawings from the class to create the principle of collaboration.

What do you know?

  1. What media will best accomplish the task?
  2. What are the most important design principles that you must consider to accomplish the task?
  3. How many ways can you attempt to solve this problem? . .. are there indeed, various ways?

SYNERGISTIC CONNECTIONS:

  1. Surrealism
  2. Dada
  3. Pop
  4. Drama, Music, Dance . . . 20th century developments (Others to come)

DESIGN PARAMETERS:

  1. You will need a construction paper portfolio to keep your drawings together. 5 sheets of 8 1/2x11 white paper. Markers, #2 pencils.
  2. Alternative media and materials may include colored pencils, markers, collage sources, cut and torn paper .. and lots of imagination.
  3. Start with the head area and work your way down the figure subject. Use the following divisions: Head; then neck to midbody; midbody to hips; hips to ankles; ankles and feet on the fifth and last sheet of paper.
  4. After completing the drawings, stash them in the portfolios We will proceed to the collaborative "mix & matching"after everyone has completed their drawings.

    HINTS/TIPS:

  5. Try to render your subject as completely detailed as possible.
  6. Make your drawings as recognizable to everyone else as you can so that they may be clearly differentiated from all the other subject figures being done in the class.


SUBJECTS:

  1. ASTRONAUTS
  2. ALIEN
  3. SPORTS FIGURE
  4. CREATURE/MONSTER
  5. WARRIOR
  6. WEIRD MUSICIAN
  7. WWF WRESTLER
  8. CYBORG


 

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Sponsored by The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, The Center for Renaissance and Baroque Studies, and the Maryland State Department of Education.

 

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Last updated 25 April 2001