South Wall
7:00 AM |
| Barstow Art History Students, South Wall, 2005-2014 |
Over the years, often on lazy Friday afternoons, students in Art History willfully destroy pretty books. Lest ye think vandals run the asylum, please understand that the classroom’s south wall has become one giant collage culled from all sorts of art textbooks, catalogs and books.
On the first day of this year, though, I asked the students to put their hand on one picture that they were intrigued by. Surprisingly, they obeyed.
Next, I told them to take everything down except the works they were touching. We don’t want to take it down, their hang-dog eyes said, we like how it looks.
I explained, in my strongest teacher voice, that what was on the wall was not art, but only mechanical reproductions of art. They had learned from Magritte that ceci nes pas une pipe; by extension I was only asking them to take down pulped paper stained with ink. Art was not involved in this calculus. Stop looking at me, and get to work already.
How disingenuous. Of course art remains thoroughly involved in said calculus. The students cringed at destroying “art,” and their discomfort encouraged me. I wanted them to build a wall for themselves and to discover new works as they decorated. I wanted them to see that pictures scissored out of books and pasted on drywall with double-sided tape serve as their own kind of museum. Further, good museums change their exhibitions regularly.
The works the students chose to keep form the first round of blog posts for this semester. I am thrilled to introduce you to this year’s class of Renaissance Art History. We have nearly a dozen new writers and a couple of seasoned seniors. I hope you enjoy their passion, insight and energetic writing as much as I do.
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