on reenactment and reproduction
9/22/18
With the start of the school year, August and September have been a rush of lost time to curriculum development, extracurriculars, the non-profit organization I work for, and recently the need to find a new studio space. Unfortunately my own artmaking time has been scarce, if present at all.
I’m teaching AP Art History this year for the first time and came into it relatively unprepared. The summer residency broke my focus from preparing myself properly, so much time nightly has gone to studying the course content, making it my own, and preparing engaging lessons for my 26 high school students that boldly signed up for our school’s first ever run of the course.
With the amount of time I’ve put into preparing for it, the daily stress of being ready for the next day’s lessons, and the anxiety of actually teaching the content well, I haven’t found myself speaking very positively of the experience. (The hypothalamus puts the negatives in the front.) However, on reflection, teaching this course has given me a whole new world of reference material for some of the course content that I’d previously not known. Along with a new skillset of teaching lecture-based, information heavy classes.
I’m a teacher that teaches making. My students in the class largely consist of regular art students accustomed to making in the classroom. So it wouldn’t make much sense to not bring some kind of making into the classroom.
While studying Ancient Egyptian art these last two weeks (students test on Monday!), one pivotal piece discussed was the Palette of King Narmer. It was a slate used for makeup that depicted relief images of the King conquering his enemies. Rather than spend a whole period talking about the piece, I quickly and excitedly showed it, told the students that it was a large king, symbols of power, an assistant, and his enemies, then told students in small groups to quickly draw their own Narmer Palettes. To think of a figure of power in their lives, illustrate them, then determine who that figure’s assistant would be, what symbols would represent their power, and what slain enemies lay at their feet. To prod them a bit, I told them they’d only have five minutes to do so.
The reaction was far better than I’d expected (to be fair, I had no idea what to expect). Students immediately jumped to comically finding figures of power. One group decided the school’s Technology Coordinator was the large figure in power, aided by the media center staff, with an iPad and charging cord in his hands to symbolize his power. At his feet they quickly drew social media apps such as Snapchat and Instagram which the Tech Coordinator had blocked from student use. Another group drew a large block inscribed as the College Board, aided by textbook and testing corporation Pearson, crushing the students’ hopes and dreams.
This act of reenactment - deliberately copying a prexisting work while drawing on personal motivation for their interpretation - not only clarified the prexisting work for students but also gave them a personal connection to a piece of art made almost 4,000 years ago. Comapred to pieces I simply lectured on, students the last two weeks have been able to speak more confidently and accurately about the Narmer Palette after that activity, including their ability to compare its formal use of hierarchical scale and its imagery of symbolized power to other pieces. If it’s not clear yet, thinking of Robert Blackson’s essay on Reenactment in Contemporary Art and Culture. Using reenactment to personalize the past. As we enter Ancient Greek, Etruscan, and Roman art next week, I’m thinking of having students tell their own myths and legends about gods and goddesses that would explain phenomena in their own life (god of memes, goddess of getting left on read...). Still developing that idea, will report back...
