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• Students will explore the use of new materials and new tools in the art-making process. • Students will look at the work of a range of artists who are integrating new tools and new materials into their artistic practice. • Students will create a work of art that integrates the use of new materials and new tools. • Students will create a work of art that re-imagines the materials, tools, and parameters of art.
Art:21 Web Site • Lick & Lather– Janine Antoni interview & clip • Pinhole Photos: "Face to face" – Ann Hamilton interview & clip • Drip – Tim Hawkinson interview & clip • Grand Rapids Project – Maya Lin interview & clip • A-Z Six Month Seasonal Uniforms – Andrea Zittel artword • Pocket Property – Andrea Zittel interview & clip • Cremaster 3 at the Guggenheim Museum – Matthew Barney interview & clip • KNOWMAD – Mel Chin interview & clip • Revival Field – Mel Chin interview & clip Classroom Materials • Found materials and objects • A variety of kitchen instruments and implements • Household materials • Beauty and hygiene products • Food items • Additional materials and tools as needed
• What are the parameters for deciding what is art and what is not art? • How do the materials and tools for creating art determine how art is created? • How do the materials and tools for creating art determine how art is defined? • How does symbolism relate to the tools and materials used to make art? • How is art related to social activism?
Not Starting with the Basics Janine Antoni, Matthew Barney, Maya Lin are just a few of the artists who have stepped outside of the traditional canon of fine art materials to explore the potential of alternative media. Antoni’s use of chocolate, soap, and lard suggest not only new materials for making art but also the symbolic connections between the materials, the work of art, and the creative process. By creating traditional sculptural busts out of chocolate and soap she can suggest, in relation to the female form, connections to eating and domestic tasks such as washing. By using hair dye to paint, Antoni again bridges a gender specific material with her artistic process, a process that has long been dominated by men. Matthew Barney is well known for employing a variety of suggestive materials in his films and sculptures, most significantly, Vaseline. Often tactile, these materials can be suggestive to viewers even though they are unable to experience them directly. Maya Lin has created different site-specific installations that incorporate the materials found on the site or incorporate elemental materials with aesthetic or symbolic aspects like broken glass and water in its four stages. Have students watch the video segments for each of these artists and ask them to record all of the different materials they see them working with and the symbolic or related attributes they have to the final work of art. After watching all of the segments compare lists as a group and discuss the benefits and drawbacks of working with a wide variety of materials. Discuss the significance of symbolism in the use of materials and as a group brainstorm as many different materials they have seen represented in contemporary art. Have students select at least 3 different materials that contain symbolic or thematic attributes (consider asking students to select materials thematically – food, beauty and hygiene products and substances, materials from the outdoors, etc.) to create a sculpture with a message that relates to its materials. In making their work of art, ask students to take into consideration the symbolic attributes of their material not only in the final work but in the process of making it. (Time: Two to three 45 minute sessions) Changing the Tools Art can be made in an infinite number of ways. Are there boundaries that determine how art should be made? In addition to the exploration of new materials to make art, artists have also found new tools with which to accomplish their ideas. Have students watch Tim Hawkinson’s and Janine Antoni’s Season Two video segment, as well as Ann Hamilton’s Season One video segment. Hawkinson is shown using a drill to twist the long pieces of plastic that form the various tendrils for the work Drip. He also describes a drawing project he worked on titled, Wall Chart of World History from Earliest Times to the Present where he used a pencil attached to a drill to draw this 51 inches high and 396 inches wide image. Fundamentally, Hawkinson’s work is based on the use of everyday tools and objects to create the complicated systems that populate his installations. Other examples of artists creating or adapting tools to make their work include Janine Antoni’s use of her own hair as the painting device in the performance, Loving Care. Again, Antoni has found a symbolic connection to the way that tools and the process of making art relates to the art, even becoming the work of art itself. In her work Face to Face, Ann Hamilton creates a camera out of a film canister and creates pinhole photographs of people that use not just the lens or hole of the camera, but her mouth as the aperture for the image. In reconfiguring the relationship to the materials through new tools, these artists are innovating the technology of art, but not necessarily through technological means. Again, have students select 3 non-traditional art-making tools and reconfigure them into a means of creating an art image or object. Again, consider suggesting the source of the tools in categories or themes. (Time: Two to three 45 minute sessions) A Whole New World, Art as Action Another category of new art includes artists who have changed the materials, tools and the rules entirely for how art is defined and recognized. Mel Chin has reinvented the terrain, literally and figuratively with his interdisciplinary projects that include video games and ecological gardens. KNOWMAD, a video game that Chin worked with Software engineers to design, incorporates the tribal carpets of various cultures that are slowly diminishing in the face of modern life. His work Revival Field created a garden of plants called hyperaccumulators that draw heavy metals from contaminated soil. Collaborative ventures that require the expertise of specialists within the related field, Chin suggests that art has a social responsibility and is more than just an object or document for display in a gallery. The artist Andrea Zittel has transformed her personal concerns and interests into a performative experiment in everyday living. Her constructed environments, including her apartment, a 44-ton floating island, and mobile trailer units, integrate Zittel’s philosophies about freedom and security, and what is sufficient and what is necessary, in the physical space of her built environment. These experiments even include her clothing which she makes using specific parameters; the design for Various A-Z Six Month Seasonal Uniforms was only based on the shape of a rectangle. Similarly, a single strand for construction allowed Zittel to create an entire series of crochet dresses. In defining what art is and how the parameters have changed, the artists in this lesson have all chosen to innovate their materials and tools to reflect the idea and the process of their work. Mel Chin and Andrea Zittel suggest even more radical departures from the traditional boundaries of art media and materials. Have students watch the Season One segments featuring Mel Chin and Andrea Zittel and engage in a debate over the parameters of art. Are there boundaries? Ask them to contemplate not only the materials and tools, but the process of making. Does the artist have to be the sole producer? Are there any materials or media that are out of bounds? Can social activism be a form of art? Have students select a site in the community that would benefit from a transformation and propose an action, event, or alteration as a work of art. Have students select a personal, local or national issue they are interested in and have them create a proposal for a work of art that allows them to get involved in the issue and present it to the public. If it is practical, encourage students to follow through on their proposal. (Time: Four 45 minute sessions to long-term project)
• Have students articulated an understanding of the use of new materials and new tools in the art making process? • Have students seen the work of a range of artists who are integrating new tools and new materials into their artistic practice? • Have students created a work of art that successfully integrates the use of new materials with symbolic associations? • Have students successfully created a work of art that integrates the use of new tools? • Have students created a successful proposal for a work of art that re-imagines the materials, tools, and parameters of art? Find out if this lesson plan correlates to your state's education standards! On PBS TeacherSource do a search for "Art in the 21st Century" and click on the Standards Match icon.
This lesson could be combined with others to further explore the boundaries and innovations in art including: In The Landscape Did you use this lesson or generate your own activities based on ideas inspired by the lesson? Submit student art work, new lesson plans, and your comments to Art:21 and have them posted on the site. Help the Online Lesson Library grow!
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