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Task 7 connects with Threshold Concept 7. It also extends on this resource: The Art of Instruction. The focus here is on the use of text within art.
Alongside wider notes and research, you will develop:
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Above are Year 12 student Lisa’s instructions, sent to others (non art students) with five responses included. Seemingly simple, but the instructions have been thoughtfully refined and developed (and deliberately shared as an image - a screenshot). The responses are varied lines, marks, patches and puddles, neither (pseudo) mathematical diagrams nor the work of four-year olds. But they are curious and appealing, to my mind, at least. What do you think? What might you learn here to help you with Task 1? Use the prompts below to assist:
- How might your written instructions find a balance between clarity and open-endedness - be accessible enough for many to have a go but remain open to (mis)interpretation in potentially interesting or revealing ways?
- How might these responses provide a basis for making further artwork? Could selected shapes and lines inspire a painting, sculpture or performance? How might these and further responses be presented in a way that celebrates their individuality or mysteriousness and allows for comparisons and connection-making?
- How might understanding or 'value' of these responses shift if presented, explained or developed in new ways?
I go back and forth between wanting to be abundantly simple and maddeningly complex. JOHN BALDESSARI
ACTIVITY PART 2: (CON)TEXT AS ART
Is it possible for your instructions created for task 1 to be an artwork in their own right? How about any form of written statement, question, quote or singular word?
Use the resources below to discover some of the various ways throughout art histories that artists have used text. Remember to research wider and produce/gather helpful notes, sketches, questions and quotes as you go.
Is it possible for your instructions created for task 1 to be an artwork in their own right? How about any form of written statement, question, quote or singular word?
- Design and develop an artwork that uses text (in some form) as a central ingredient. This might be a body of writing, singular sentences, statements, quotes or questions, or even letter forms or punctuation.
- Consider how this might be displayed, presented or shared with others, perhaps in a public space to be encountered by chance. How might the text you use question, challenge, provoke, entertain, amuse or confuse?
Use the resources below to discover some of the various ways throughout art histories that artists have used text. Remember to research wider and produce/gather helpful notes, sketches, questions and quotes as you go.
TASK 7 ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
The slideshow above provides various examples of how some artists have used text within artworks throughout history. (There are, of course, numerous art histories, and some artists and cultures have been more privileged than others in being acknowledged, shared and celebrated - something that all of our artpedagogy resources are trying to rebalance. In this respect the slideshow above is still very much a work in progress).
Use the following prompts below to help you develop your own text-based response:
Use the following prompts below to help you develop your own text-based response:
- How might you combine your interests in art making with this challenge to produce a text-based work? Consider the materials you like to use and the techniques, styles and skills you wish to develop. How might you devise a solution that enables you to develop, experiment and learn on your own terms? For example, if you are interested in design or pattern, or abstraction or geometric modernism (for example), the shapes (or lines or colours) of words and letters might be more important than any meaning or message. If you are interested in a more painterly or representational approach, you might explore the use of text as a thoughtful accompanying aspect (such as in the example of Dürer's self-portrait in the slideshow, above).
- What materials or locations (particularly if in lockdown) might you be able to access and utilise as inspiration? Do you have a garden shed or garage that you could raid for surfaces, paints or brushes? How might you create/construct/assemble a 3-dimensional surface upon which you might apply your text to in an imaginative way?
- How might you create the largest message possible, or the smallest? What are the potential advantages or disadvantages of exploring new scales of working?
- How might you (legally, obviously) use a public space such as the beach or a local park to share your work and words? And if so, what might be the best way of documenting this?
TASK 7 SUMMARY
You should complete:
- A range of notes and wider research in response to the resources above.
- A sequence of instructions exploring the relationships between words and images and the potential for creative (mis)interpretations.
- A presentation/display of both your instructions and subsequent responses.
- Designs and developmental planning/sketches for a text-based artwork in response to personal research and writing
- A final text-based artwork - to be presented, displayed and documented in a public location, via photography or film.
FURTHER READING
- Glenn Ligon I AM A MAN Heni Talks
- A subjective history of text-based art
- Are we there yet? Artfully Learning