Social justice and art

Introduction

Have you ever seen a problem in the world,

But couldn’t find the words to say something?

Image result for SOCIAL JUSTICE ARTShepard Fairey, 2014

 If so then you might be on the brink of becoming a social justice artist!

For centuries artist have been making huge changes in the world by creating art that focus on the controversial topics of their time. From Picasso’s Guernica to Banksy’s  Girl with Balloons artist of every century have been putting their opinions about the problems of the world into visual images with hard messages.

Image result for WEST BANK GIRL WITH BALLOONSBanksy, 2005
Image result for guernica picasso open image Pablo Picasso, 1937

All you need is a problem…. A passion…. And some oil pastels.

Task

What you will be doing today is considering the world of social justice art in preparation for your social commentary art work that you will be doing as the final for this unit.  First you will choose 3 of the artist from the list of 15 and read the attached article or watching the video on that artist’s artwork. From that article you will be filling out the work sheet, a total of 3 worksheets, one for each artist. Once you have completed those steps you will begin to brainstorm about the controversial topics that you can address in your own art work.

                                              Image result for SOCIAL JUSTICE ART

Process

STEP 1

First thing you will do is choose three artist from the list bellow, for each artist there is an article of video about that artist and their artwork.

  1. Ai Weiwei:http://www.theartstory.org/artist-ai-weiwei.htm
  2. Banksy: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/18/books/banksy-the-man-behind-the-wall-by-will-ellsworth-jones.html
  3. Barbra Kruiger:http://www.theartstory.org/artist-kruger-barbara-artworks.htm#pnt_2
  4. Diego Riverahttp://www.theartstory.org/artist-rivera-diego.htm
  5.  Fred Tomaselli:http://www.jamescohan.com/artists/fred-tomaselli//16
  6. Imran Qureshi:http://herald.dawn.com/news/1153724
  7. Joshua Allen Harris:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2082169/Joshua-Allen-Harris-Street-artist-turns-trash-bags-inflatable-animal-sculptures.html
  8. Pablo Picasso:http://www.theartstory.org/artist-picasso-pablo.htm
  9. Robbie Conal: https://www.linktv.org/shows/artbound/robbie-conal-street-art
  10. Shepard Fairey: http://www.thedailybeast.com/shepard-fairey-how-im-taking-on-abuse-of-power-and-political-corruption-in-on-our-hands
  11. Steve Lambart: http://creativetimereports.org/2014/04/07/does-capitalism-work-for-you/
  12. Vic Muniz: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/arts/design/24muniz.html

                                       MEEK | Begging for change.  Meek, 2004

STEP 2

Now you will take and complete the following work sheet for each of the artist you choose: ( * your teacher has a stack of these printed at the front of the class, or you can download and fill them our digitally from the class website)

Artist Name:____________________________________________________________________

When did they work?_____________________________________________________________

How, what media?_______________________________________________________________

Additional information: ___________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________

Significant pieces created: _________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________

One significant piece to focus critique on: _____________________________________________

What issue is the artist focusing on?__________________________________________________

List 3 symbols used to talk about that issue in the artist’s piece:

1._____________________________________________________________________________

2._____________________________________________________________________________

3._____________________________________________________________________________

 

What do these symbols represent? How dose the artist use them to talk about he issue? Are the positive of negative?

__________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________

Image result for diego rivera artDiego Rivera, 1935

STEP 3

Brainstorm!

Time to come up with your own controversial topics please create a list of 25 from that list choose one you feel most passionate about and bring it to you teacher.

 

Evaluation

Conclusion

Now that you have seen the work of other social justice artist and what they are doing to make the world a better place be ready to come into class tommorrow with your own ideas of controversal topics. we will be working on abstracting those ideas down to create new and intresting symbols to be used for creating  your final piece.

                             Image result for barbara kruger most famous artwork Barbra Kurger, 1987