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September 14, 2010
Where does Graphic Design meet fine art?

By: Kevin L. from Chalmette, LA
Comments: 26


COMMENTS

   
Posted By: Kevin Loria
On: 3/27/2008 4:58:46 PM

While viewing/discussing "pop art" and the appropriated images of Warhol, Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns and others, such artworks beg the question, “ When does graphic design become fine art? Or “When does a borrowed image become more than just a reworked copy of another artist’s work?” Don’t get me wrong. As an artist, I love taking an interesting image from some unusual source. But with scanners and the state of 21st cen. computer printers, the line seems blurred.


   
Posted By: Elizabeth Roszak
On: 4/1/2008 11:28:41 AM

This something I am constantly struggling with. I have a lesson plan posted called What is Art? What is Design? that will hopefully help me and my students come up with some answers regarding this dilemma. Your question will take my lesson to another level. My question is, how do you get students to talk about something that doesn't really have an answer? I tend to get one or two students that will talk and the rest sit quietly!
   
Posted By: Cecile Jenevein
On: 4/3/2008 11:25:39 AM

Kevin I think this is a great idea to have the signs posted to get the creative juices flowing. I will use this idea at the beginning of school so that they also have an idea of what I will be expecting from them for visuals related to their cooperative learning activities.
   
Posted By: Mary Hannon
On: 4/6/2008 1:25:37 PM

Art the recent NAEA convention, one of the speakers suggested that teachers just let the cliches, appropriations, and reworkings go. If students are presented with open ended prompts for their work, it usually does start with hearts and roses and Tweety Birds, but if they are encouraged to experiment with media and symbolic representations of personal issues, they evolve into something much stronger. It certainly worked in her class, the art journals she showed marvelous progression.


   
Posted By: Jacalyn Moss
On: 4/7/2008 10:55:45 PM

Graphic art never becomes fine art. Fine art has an ethereal quality. It is indidualistic; it is a visionary expression. It can never be generated by computer imagery.


   
Posted By: Jon Twersky
On: 4/8/2008 2:11:56 PM

I teach Design, not Art, at a Charter High School in Philadelphia. Prior to this I taught Art for over 10 years in various settings from public and private school to community centers and outreach programs. I have come to see Design as utilitarian and art as functional. This is strictly semantics. For those of you who are already arguing let me explain my point of view. When I say functional I mean serving a purpose. The purpose of art is to provide stimulation to others, whether intended or not, and an expressive outlet for the artist. In my opinion when art is made the "other" is not considered. If the viewer, listener, participant finds a use for an artists creation great. Most artists aren't very keen on painting a portrait to match the fabric of a couch. However a designer must consider the user in every aspect. Often times the color of a persons fabric is very much considered by a designer. I consider myself an artist. With that being said I see art as playing a larger part in design than do design being part of art. A colleague uses the example of a bicycle with square tires as art. Not sure if I agree.
   
Posted By: Brittain Villaflor
On: 4/10/2008 4:45:18 PM

I like the idea of thinking about the audience and the purpose when defining art or design. I feel like when we give our kids an assignment with parameters that include thinking about the audience and how we want them to react, we should define it as design. More open-ended assignments that are truly created just for the purpose of being created, and experimenting with materials and techniques, would be called art. I think it makes sense to share that work with others and expect a reaction but maybe the difference is that there is no "expected" reaction with art. The creator is not looking for a specific reaction as they might with design. It seems like intention is the main question. With the bicycle with square tires was the creator making it to elicit a specific reaction from an audience or was it an "expressive outlet" for his ideas that people may react to in many different ways. I'm still thinking about this a lot.


   
Posted By: Jon Twersky
On: 4/11/2008 10:39:44 PM

Not sure if the square tire bike is real or just a concept used by the teacher to prove a point. I wouldn't be surprised if did exist as “art.” Would make just as much sense as some other pieces in the modern art world. I like the concept prefacing lessons as art or design as a way of providing students an understanding audience.
   
Posted By: Brittain Villaflor
On: 4/13/2008 4:19:58 PM

I think the exploration of Pop Art with younger children (1st/2nd grade) would be really exciting. They are so constantly bombarded with visual images used for advertising (such as logos and product design to sell products - akin to the old Campbell's Soup can) that to really take the time to sit and think about those images would be important. It could be framed around the idea of why something is created (is it just to make art) or is there a reason behind it (buy this clothing, eat this food, you'll be happy if you use this product). An exploration could end with the question- Why is this design (the actual label of the soup can) and this is art (Warhol's work with the soup can)? It could be a great start for young children's inquiring minds to look critically at the intentions behind the creation of the things they see around them.


   
Posted By: Kevin Loria
On: 4/13/2008 7:43:54 PM

Part of the reason I posted the question in the first place was some of the negative reactions to the George Rodrigue retrospective at NOMA. Known best for his "Blue Dog" series, Rodrigue's mainstream projects are very much a product of graphic design as fine art, and draws heavily from the "Pop art" movement. A direction he has recently gone in puts my initial question of this distinction into sharper relief. He has taken an image, paints it in black and white, converts or scans that image, then alters it with PC software.


   
Posted By: Mary Hannon
On: 4/19/2008 3:39:05 PM

I think part of the negative reaction to Rodrigue's show is that there is a perception that poor Tiffany has ceased to serve an "artistic" purpose. Exploring a theme or a medium, even software, is a legitimate fine art activity. The constant repetition of a successful format blurs the line.
   
Posted By: susanne donahoe
On: 10/8/2008 11:02:02 AM

"artistic purpose" - what a generalization. in my teaching and planning; i try to incorporate an "artistic purpose" for all elements. Art and "beauty" is in the eye of the beholder. I think I heard that somewhere----just joking. I am always amused; when the "clinical" mind is unable to see beyond the borders...susanne
   
Posted By: Ben zhao
On: 12/30/2008 7:18:02 PM

I happen to teach IB ( International Baccalaureate) Art. IB and IB Art/Design are all about critical thinking. All the discussions above fall into the art theory part of curriculum. If you don't teach art, get a good book or take a course in aesthetics. Lots of us love art or design or both but very few of us are trained to converse with critical thinking skills. Is that necessary? Not really. Being fuzzy is good. Who needs more lawyers.


   
Posted By: betsy casanas
On: 1/9/2009 1:48:24 PM

I dont know how I feel about this. I also am a design teacher at the Charter High School for Architecture and Design. I understand the difference between Design and Fine arts but is this what we are talking about here? If we are talking about Andy Warhol arent we talking about an artist using graphics as a tool to create art? So maybe it becomes art when it's no longer functional.


   
Posted By: betsy casanas
On: 1/9/2009 2:08:12 PM

Creating art with graphics I think with our younger college students ends up being a crutch. Students are too used to getting on the computer manipulating an image and making it theirs. Actually sitting and drawing is a basic skill that some are losing because of their obsession with the computer. I think art can be and should be created using all the mediums available to us. Andy Warhol used film, photography and so many other mediums to express an idea. I think that as teachers we need to show and expose our kids to multiple mediums so they can have options. We are so influenced by video games and technology that its becoming the only way our kids no how to express themselves.


   
Posted By: Kevan Nitzberg
On: 2/23/2009 9:29:12 PM

I think part of the conversation here has to do with looking at traditional fine arts media as separate from computer technology-based media. While I am primarily a painter and probably more 'old school' in my own educational background, as an art teacher I found found that there is definitely a synthesis that can (and I think should), be fostered by providing students with access to both avenues of creating artwork. The following is an article that I wrote for the winter issue of the Art Exchange (the Art Educators of Minnesota newsletter), that discusses what I have been seeing and experimenting with in my art room at Anoka H.S. If you are interested in seeing images of the artwork that my students have been creating, contact me via email at: [email protected].

Here is the article:

Art Studio / Technology Synthesis – 21st Century Art Classroom?
By Kevan Nitzberg

This past year I have been very fortunate to have had my art classroom transformed into a studio / computer lab space. That transformation came about through both my teaching more sections of art classes that are heavily dependent on computer technology and the computer technology infrastructure funding that was provided last year by the federal government to support the increasing trend towards standardized testing. The classes that I have that had been computer lab-based had been taking place in PC labs and by providing me with a Mac lab (which are better suited for many of the digital video and computer graphics curriculum that I teach), those other computer labs were now freed up to support the testing space needs of my school. Apparently Macs are not compatible with the standardized testing software.

Although it has been the video computer and commercial art classes that I teach that helped to bring about this newly configured studio space, I have found that the availability of the technology for all of my art students to use, is prompting new ways of generating art making that to a significant extent, is being pioneered by the students themselves. Their world is very tech-based and so it is becoming increasingly apparent that those opportunities that are presenting themselves in my room simply dove-tail with existing skills and ways of working that they are already very familiar with. That synthesis appears to be very relevant to how it appears the world is reshaping itself as we begin to move into the 21st century.

I should also point out that I have had a fascination with the application of various traditional and technology based media to the making of artwork for many years, and have offered that ‘hybrid’ approach to my students in the past with far less access to the tools that I have now have which makes the previous dependency on the teacher and the one computer in the room, no longer an issue. Some of the previous directions that I have applied have been as mundane as researching subject matter and artists using various search engines and programs online, to having students create composite images utilizing oil pastel and color pencil as a result of examining contrasting images from printed media to creating ‘illuminated manuscripts’ by combining scanned linoleum block prints that students have created and embellishing them with text that was created using computer software programs. Having students now able to access the 30 Mac Mini computers that I now have in my room, in addition to the other technology that I also have available to me, makes the creative process being generated by my students even more exciting and far reaching.

In terms of what those tools are, this is a list of the technology components that I now have access to:

• Mac Mini Computers
• Flat screen monitors
• Large Format printer
• Flatbed Scanner
• Networked black and white and color printers
• Camcorders
• Flash drives
• Smart Board
• LCD projector and screen(s)
• DVD / VHS Player
• External speakers

What I envision all of this leading to and becoming more of the norm in the 21st century art room, is the following:

• Computer enhanced research as a normal function that is facilitated in the art room / dep’t.
• Multi-media tools and techniques by which students can continue to pursue a more personalized and unique vision in creating their own work
• Synthesis of studio-based and digital / computer-based visual art application bringing in the real world technology applications that students are already using outside of school
• Discovery of new art forms through exploration and experimentation
• Appreciation for and application of elements of art and principles of design in contemporary art
• Incorporation of Media Arts Standards along with Visual Arts Standards (revised versions of all of the Arts Standards are being released this spring – 2009)
• More seamless transitioning between visual art and other curriculum disciplines as technology continues to allow for new connections to be made between various areas of learning


   
Posted By: Daniel Nelson
On: 2/24/2009 6:15:23 PM

Current technology is and always has been available to the arts. Often it is the exploration of the technology that creates new art forms. Questioning how we see and how we perceive has always been basic to art.


   
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