Topic: The scandalers are coming

Lesson plan elaborated by: Katarzyna Maciejak

Target group:

4th‑grade students of a high school.

The core curriculum

I. Literary and cultural education.

2. Receipt of cultural texts. Student:

4) compares cultural texts, taking into account various contexts; ZR

5) recognises and characterizes the main styles in architecture and art; ZR

6) reads non‑literary cultural texts using the code proper in a given field of art;

IV. Self‑study. Student:

4) develops the ability of independent work, among others, by preparing various forms of presenting their own position;

5) organises the information into a problematic whole by valuing it; synthesizes the learned content around the problem, topic, issue and uses it in your statements;

11) uses multimedia resources, eg from: libraries, on‑line dictionaries, e‑book publications, original websites; selects web sources, taking into account the criterion of material correctness and critically evaluates their content.

General aim of education

Students learn about the art of modernism and postmodernism.

Key competences

• communication in foreign languages;

• digital competence;

• learning to learn.

Learning outcomes

Student:

• characterises the main trends in 20th‑century art;

• discusses the differences between modernism and postmodernism;

• recognises examples of works belonging to particular trends;

• gathers vocabulary to describe piece of contemporary art;

• presents his/her own opinion about piece of art;

• presentshis/her own position in the debate.

Methods/techniques

• activating

  • debate.

• programmed

  • with computer;

  • with e‑textbook.

• practical

  • exercices concerned.

Forms of work

• individual activity;

• activity in pairs;

• activity in groups;

• collective activity.

Teaching aids

• e‑textbook;

• notebook and crayons/felt‑tip pens;

• interactive whiteboard, tablets/computers.

Lesson plan overview

Before classes

1. Students get acquainted with the content of the abstract (reversed lesson), watch the film about the rules of conducting the Oxford debate and prepare for a debate on the subject: „Is controversial art necessary?”.

Introduction

1. The teacher states the subject of the lesson, explains the aim of the lesson and together with students determines the success criteria to be achieved.

2. The students, selected by the teacher, refer to the lesson they read at home before the classes.

Realization

1. The teacher invites students to the debate. At the beginning, he asks them to prepare a room, that is, arrange the chairs and tables in a proper way. By lot, he assigns them roles - one Marshal, one secretary, four speakers of the Proposition, four Oppositions and the Audience. It also sets the time to collect the prepared arguments. Then there is a debate on the topic of „Scandal is the art you need”. The topic of the debate can be changed and adapted to the interests of students. However, it should be remembered to formulate it unequivocally and in the form of an affirmative sentence.

2. The students discuss, and the teacher watches over the course of the debate and, if necessary, supports the marshal and the secretary.

3. The teacher discusses the results of the debate with the students. He asks about their impressions and assessment of the debate as a method of working on a lesson.

Summary

1. The teacher carries out a summary part of the lesson using the trash and suitcase method. The teacher hands out small pieces of paper in two different colours (e.g. green and yellow). On the green pieces of paper the students write down the useful knowledge and skills they acquired during the class. The yellow pieces of paper are used to write down things the students did not find useful or interesting. The teacher reads students’ reflections.

Homework

1. Find an example of an artistic scandal. Write in a notebook, what it was about and what effect it had on the artist, his work or the way of perceiving art. Try to evaluate this artistic strategy.

The following terms and recordings will be used during this lesson

Terms

Texts and recordings

The scandalers are coming

The modern art undergoes constant changes and its image is still not specified. In the 1990s, the world entered into the digital age. New technologies and the Internet revolutionized also the visual sphere. Major changes affecting the civilisation make artists look at the world critically. Many of them use media scandals. Their works provoke important questions about the state of the modern human and oftentimes break cultural taboos. At the same time, they are subject to the laws of the free market – controversial works or artistic events and prominent exhibitions become “products”.

Modernism, which dates back to the mid‑19 century, covers works of art, as well as artistic trends and attitudes. The essential characteristics of modernism were the avant‑garde replacements of the old with the new, the dominance of experimentation and the continuous extending of the boundaries (new forms, new representations and new media). As the high and elite art, modernism laid the foundations of the use of the hermetic language of abstraction.

However, this vast variety of forms and new means of expression determined the entire nature of the art of the first half of 20th century. Modernist artists tried to create unique works of art, balancing the profound theoretical thought with the solid experience. It was chiefly the European or South American art, evolving in large urban centres, elite art schools, exhibited in modern galleries and created mostly by men.

Paintings of Mark Rothko and Franz Kline – representatives of the abstract expressionism – are examples of modernist works of art. These painters, concentrating on colour and patches (Rothko) or lines and gestures (Kline), expressed subtle feelings or simply free expression. The paintings are anti‑narrative and affect only through the form: plane, colour and simplified shapes.

Both US artists, one representing the color field painting (Rothko), and the other – the so‑called calligraphy painting, belonged to a generation which entered the international world of art after 1945. At that time, Paris ceased to be the artistic centre and was replaced by New York – a dynamic capital city of the New Art World.

The installation of Elen Wetmore is a perfect example of a postmodern work of art. With the use of video and computer editing, the artist presented a process of “reconstruction” of her portrait, referring, at the same time, to analytical cubist works and famous portrayals of Dora Maar, a painter, photographer, poet, model and lover of Picasso. Using a modern technique, the artist spatialised a classic easel painting. She also became a porte‑parole of Dora Maar and other women marginalised by the world of art. Characteristic features of postmodern art are the introduction of feminist issues, quotes from another work of art and reference to tradition (cubism and surrealism). In the film Visiting Dora Maar, the artist tries to “reinvent” herself from scattered, elusive phantoms of pictures and paintings.