Visual Culture in the Art Class Case Studies

My initial goal in approaching Paul Duncum's book Visual Culture in the Art Class: Case Studies was to get a picture of what studio practice looks like in art classrooms dealing with visual culture. Developing such a clear picture, however, proved to be greatly complicated by the wide range of activities and interpretations described in these case studies. The variety of artistic production possible under the rubric of visual culture in the art class is as broad as what is found in visual culture at large. Rather than developing a definition or a picture of what studio practice looks like through reading these cases, I developed an understanding of the relationships teachers were constructing between research (often in the form of discussion, questioning, and critical thinking about contemporary images) and studio practice in the classroom. In addition, I began to realize that these cases reflect a continued evolution of the idea of studio practice itself. In this review, I look briefly at the grades included in these cses, survey examples of student production, and more deeply explore the approaches and implications of several cases. In conclusion, I discuss the importance of concerns raised by several of the authors.-- William Nieberding, Ohio State Universityoriginally published in Visual Arts Research, Summer 2009University of Illinois Press