This multi-layered tool will assist teachers in:

• developing students' appreciation for and understanding of contemporary art

• increasing students' ability to meet mandated standards for learning

• enhancing critical thinking skills through a multidisciplinary approach

• helping students make connections between art, their personal lives and experiences, and contemporary social and political ideas

• Building skills in articulating and expressing students’ ideas and perspectives verbally, in written form, and in artwork

The following themes may be used to link together two or more entries into a larger unit. Applicable themes are noted at the end of each entry.

Exploring identity
How do you describe yourself to another person? Our individual identity is based on many components: nationality, gender, interests, culture, race, values, and specific experiences. We also have an identity based on the variety of groups to which we belong. Explore how artists express these ideas about themselves, others, and the world around them. The artist’s choice of subject matter, the way in which it is represented, and the manner and materials he or she uses can often be revealing.

Representing our world
Many artists create work in response to current events and the world around them, choosing a variety of methods and materials to convey a message or to document people and places that have significant meaning. We can learn about ourselves and others, history and society, from contemporary artworks.

Art for art’s sake
Entries exploring this theme will help your students analyze artworks in terms of their formal properties, such as line, shape, color, and form. Students may explore ways of expressing themselves creatively through materials and various methods of art making.

Parts representing the whole
Lessons related to this theme will engage students in an exploration of the use of multiples in artwork. Students will explore how art making is often a process of combining different, or similar, smaller elements to create a larger artwork, just as in life smaller issues or events often create larger ones. These lessons encourage students to identify the processes of construction and deconstruction that often take place when understanding an artwork, written work, or societal issues.

Power of words
Artists incorporate words in a variety of ways in their work. Often artists juxtapose words with images to evoke a reaction or question a viewer’s notion of language. Other times artists use words alone as the subject of their artwork. The entries addressing this theme will engage students in actively looking at the relationship words have to one another and to images and how we construct meaning from language.

Advertising and media
Entries related to this theme will encourage students to explore how we receive information about the world around us through advertising and mass media. Some artists use these same techniques in their artwork provoking the viewer to question our media-saturated culture. How do television, movies, advertisements, magazines, and other forms of media (both images and words) influence our notions of reality, self or gender identity, and global awareness?

Grade Level, Subject, and Thematic Links

Artist/Subject

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