The document discusses ways to teach art from a multicultural perspective in a way that celebrates students' own cultural identities while fostering respect and appreciation for other cultures. It recommends starting with the cultures represented in the local school and community, focusing on a theme expressed across cultures like identity or nature, and including examples of contemporary and historic visual artworks. The document emphasizes avoiding stereotypes, considering whether assumptions can be made about cultures without words for art, and knowing the cultural contexts of what one teaches.
2. How can I teach art in ways that
makes my students take pride in
their own cultural identity while
gaining respect and appreciation
for the art and customs of other
cultures?
Marvin Bartel
http://www.goshen.edu/art/ed/multiculturalart.html
3. Much of what we know about historic
cultures is through objects we are likely to
consider as art.
4. How can we teach about other cultures without
stereotyping them?
6. Is it appropriate to make assumptions about a
culture that has no word for art?
For example, Native American cultures have no
word for art. They do not separate “art” from life.
7. Is it right to imitate what might be sacred or at least
traditional in another culture?
Marvin Bartel
http://www.goshen.edu/art/ed/multiculturalart.html
The Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona
8. If I know an artist’s intentions, I can motivate my
students to create art based on similar intentions related
to the culture of the students in my class.
Marvin Bartel
http://www.goshen.edu/art/ed/multiculturalart.html
9. Learn about artists as part of
a larger unit. Here a Days of
the Dead celebration honors
Mexican artists Diego Rivera
and Frida Kahlo.
16. One approach is to start with the cultures
represented in your school and community.
Another is to start with a theme or big idea and
show how it has been expressed in art from
many cultures and times. Try to include visual
culture and both contemporary and historic
artworks.
Know what you are talking about.
How to Get Started
17. Ernest Boyer’s Human Commonalities
All of us:
• experience the life cycles.
• work.
• use symbols.
• know time and place.
• search for a larger purpose.
• have an aesthetic response.
• seek social bonding.
• have a connection to nature.
19. How to Get Started
One approach is to start with the cultures represented in your
school and community.
Come up with a theme or big idea. This can be as simple as identity,
community, story, nature, ecology, cycles, etc. Keep concepts
simple. Consider how that idea is expressed in art. Look for many
art examples from different times, places, and cultures that will
appeal to students. Try to include visual culture and both
contemporary and historic artworks.
Think about how you will engage your students. How can you
present each lesson in an interesting way? Sharing a book,
showing and discussing an Animoto video, PowerPoint, or Prezi?
20. Search Out Your Own Multicultural Experiences
Join SchoolArts and CRIZMAC in Oaxaca, Mexico, or Santa Fe, New Mexico
Notas del editor
Find contemporary artists, too. Hung Liu is from China but lives in the US now. Many of her paintings are based on old photographs and Chinese history.
Julian and Maria Martinez, San Ildefonso Pueblo
Kachina by Georgia O’Keeffe
Kachinas are sacred objects to Native American people. These figurines are given to children not as toys, but as objects to be treasured and studied. Not sure we should be having students make their own versions.
Learn as much as you can before teaching your students.
Don’t forget to explore Visual Culture. Hello Kitty is shown here in many incarnations.
Learn all you can about and from artists from different cultures. Here is Cilau Valadez, Huichol culture from Mexico and Agustin Cruz Prudencion from Oaxaca, Mexico.
Look for contemporary artists who integrate historical ideas and culture.
Brian Jungen (born April 29, 1970 in Fort St. John, British Columbia) is a Canadian artist from British Columbia with Swiss and Dunne-za First Nations ancestry. Jungen is the first living Native American artist to exhibit at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) in Washington, D.C. with his survey exhibition entitled Strange Comfort that was on view from October 16, 2009 to August 8, 2010. Jungen won the 2010 Iskowitz Prize for visual arts.