Chapter 3: A Place for Design: RISD at the Hoppin Homestead, 1878-1893

International Journal of Art & Design Education, 2011

This thesis uses Foucault’s notions of discourse and genealogy to explicate the emergence of graphic design in Victoria. As opposed to traditional histories which tend to portray graphic design as an unproblematic evolution from either ancient origins, or origins grounded in what has been called the industrial revolution, this enquiry sees graphic design as the confluence and selection of certain practices, and not others, some previously known as commercial art, and some not. It sees the emergence of graphic design as the gathering together of these practices within the discourse of design. In particular, it sees this gathering as a political exercise, where they are aligned with other design discourse components such as product or interior design. Using this methodology we have been able to explicate this emergence in terms of the workings of power through discourses—through the creation or reconstitution of objects like typography; languages like ‘modernist principles’; hierarchies as we find in design organisations which can confer or withhold credentials from certain practices and practitioners; and through educational institutions which formally legitimise these objects, languages, and hierarchies through histories and theories. This thesis has taken the approach that histories work to promote a certain way of understanding these practices such that their position within a particular discourse appears self-evident. It sees histories as always political. This thesis takes up Bourdieu’s perspective that the language of art is a language of exclusion which privileges certain social groups over others. I develop this concept to argue that design and graphic design are similarly implicated in the maintenance of social distinction. Thus the various historical emergences of design and graphic design are regarded in terms of how they work to shift power. The thesis excavates the meanings of terms such as ‘design’, ‘graphic design’ ‘commercial art’, and ‘graphic art’ in their historical specificity bringing to the surface the conditions and politics of their use. As opposed to seeing graphic design as a natural continuation of commercial art, I argue that graphic design emerged out of a complex set of relations between fine art discourse, design discourse, and the advertising industry, and that this emergence was made possible or necessary because of social shifts and changing work practices and technologies. The thesis argues that the ascendency of graphic design over commercial art is politically charged and relates directly to notions of social distinction. It also explicates the role of educational institutions in the emergence and consolidation of graphic design through legitimising histories and theories. A central theme of this thesis is that these shifts work to maintain notions of ‘legitimate’ creativity as the possession of a privileged few.

Journal of Visual Art Practice, 2022

The following essay proceeds through twenty-one visual and textual 'scenes' from the complex history of the art school, as a contribution to debates about its political character. The title is taken from Jacques Rancière's (2013) Aisthesis. This is Rancière's most sustained exposition of the 'aesthetic regime of art'. His strategy in this book is to juxtapose 'the event' of an artwork against 'the interpretive network which gives it meaning' (2013, ix). He is specifically interested in the transition between different 'regimes of art'. The scenes in this article map the transition from what Rancière calls the 'representative regime' to the 'aesthetic regime' on to the historical, pedagogical, ideological, and political evolution of the modern art school. These scenes roughly cover the period from the formation of the Royal Academy in 1768 to the art school protests in 1968. They also include references to the nineteenth-century UK Schools of Design, Socialist Realism, Greenbergian Modernism, Althusserian ideology critique, and the Bauhaus. This essay is a sketch leading toward a longer, non-linear, counter-history of the art school.

Pedagogical Explorations in a Posthuman Age

As Florida (2002) writes regarding the 'creative class,' "Creativity is now the decisive source of competitive advantage" (5). Creativity has indeed received a 'new life' in art education. For a long time, no one was speaking about 'creativity.' It seemed to be a forgotten discourse, partly perhaps because art could not claim exclusive rights of its possession. Many other 'subject' areas could claim the same territory. Things have changed, mainly due to the new economic realization that creativity is good for business and good for everyone. The Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism has declared the twenty-first century to be that of 'creativity.' Jesook Song (2010) has recently edited a number of essays that point to this continued neoliberalism in South Korea. The opening keynote for the Second World Conference on Arts Education held in Seoul on May 24-25, 2010, which I attended and participated in, was delivered by the husband and wife research team of Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein (2001), who specialize in 'creative practices.' Their presentation was entitled "arts and science, education and creativity, research and practice." They made the claim that Noble Prize winners were creative people in the way they crossed the borders CHAPTER 7

Sarah Ganz-Blythe, Andrew Martinez (Eds.): Why Art Museums? The Unfinished Work of Alexander Dorner, 2018

This essay looks at the 1939 exhibition "Rhode Island Architecture" at the Museum of the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, which was jointly organized by Henry Russell Hitchcock and Alexander Dorner, the recent German immigrant and director of the museum.