Art and Literacy by Luis Camnitzer

8/7/2019 Art and Literacy by Luis Camnitzer

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/art-and-literacy-by-luis-camnitzer 1/7

Luis Camnitzer

Art and Literacy

You teach a child to read, and he or her willbe able to pass a literacy test.

Ð George W. Bush, in a speech given inTownsend, Tennessee, February 21, 2001

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊInterestingly, at least in the languages Iknow, when one talks about alphabetization

there is always the mention of reading andwriting, in that order. Ideologically speaking, thisprioritized order not only reflects the divisionbetween production and consumption, butsubliminally emphasizes the latter: ignorance isshown more by the inability to read than by theinability to write. Further, this order suggeststhat alphabetization is more important for thereception of orders than for their emission.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊOf course, this theory Ð that if one wants tobe able to write something, one should know howit is written Ð has some logic to it. It forces one

first to read, then to copy what one reads Ð tounderstand somebody elseÕs presentation inorder to then re-present it. In art terms, however,this is similar to saying that one has to first lookat the model in order to then copy it. Now thelogical construction becomes much lesspersuasive. This is not necessarily wrong, insofaras one really wants to copy the model, or theneed to copy the model is well grounded. Inessence, if there is no proven need, the logicalconstruction ceases to be one Ð it becomes adogma disguised as logic.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThis theory establishes first that the modeldeserves to be copied, second that there is amerit in making a reasonably faithful copy, andthird that this process is useful to prepare theartist to produce art. This idea is a leftover fromthe nineteenth century, and its relevance today ishighly questionable. An artist then has to askwhether the problems posed today byalphabetization might not be in need of new andmore contemporary approaches. Is there ananalysis of these problems informed by theattitudes that removed art from the nineteenthcentury and brought it into the twentieth? In

other words, is alphabetization a tool to helppresentation or re-presentation? Where is powerlocated? Is it granted to the literate-to-be or tobe found in the system that wants him or her tobe literate?ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊOne tends to speak of art as a language. Insome cases it is even described as a universallanguage, a kind of Esperanto capable oftranscending all national borderlines. As auniversal language, stressing universal, artserves the interests of colonization and theexpansion of an art market. The notion of art as a

plain language, however, underlines a notion of itas a form of communication. In this case, power

e-flux journal #3 Ñ february 2009 Ê Luis Camnitzer

Art and Literacy

01/07

08.11.10 / 18:10:47 UTC



McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book, published in 1879. © Robin Dude on Flickr

is not granted to the market, but to those whoare communicating.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊEducational institutions expect everybodyto be able to learn how to read and write. It wouldfollow that, if everybody has the potential to usereading and writing for expression, everybodyshould also have the potential to be an artist. Yetin art the assumption is different. Everybody maybe able to appreciate art, but only a few are

expected to produce it Ð not all readers arewriters. Such inconsistent expectations overlookthe fact that, just as alphabetization should notaim for Nobel Prizes in literature, art educationshould not aim for museum retrospectives. NobelPrizes and retrospectives are more indicative of akind of triumphal competitiveness than of goodeducation. Put simply, good education exists todevelop the ability to express and communicate.This is the importance of the concept ofÒlanguageÓ here, the implication being that bothart and alphabetization can be linked to nurture

each other.

Reading, Writing, and the RestAt this moment, we are in the precise middle ofthe decade that the United Nations hasdesignated as the Decade for Alphabetization(alphabetization here used in the sense of

education for literacy). UNESCO estimates thatthere are 39 million illiterates in Latin Americaand the Caribbean, roughly 11% of whom areadults.1 16 million of them are in Brazil. Thesestatistics only include people who do not knowhow to read or write. If we add those who arefunctionally illiterate Ð people who have thetechniques, but are not able to use them tounderstand or to develop ideas Ð these figures

grow astronomically. In developing countries, oneout of every five people older than 15 isconsidered illiterate. Among developedcountries, nearly 5% of the population ofGermany, for example, is functionally illiterate.And among literate students in the US, it isestimated that 75% of those finishing highschool do not have the reading skills required forcollege.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe teaching of reading and writing hasbeen a major part of the schooling mission forover two centuries. It has also been on the minds

of countless specialists who ponder gaps informal education in both expected andunexpected sectors of the public. That everybodyshould know how to read and write is taken forgranted. However, beyond vague truismsregarding its function, there is little discussionabout how those abilities are used. And yet the

02/07

08.11.10 / 18:10:47 UTC



problem of illiteracy persists even in countriesclaiming to have eradicated it.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊArt has dealt with illiteracy on amazinglyrare occasions, and when it did, it did so mostlyof its own accord, keeping within its disciplinaryidentity and confusions, among them an ideathat appreciating art is for everyone whilemaking art is for the few. This means that artÕsmain strengths Ð speculation, imagination, and

its questions of Òwhat if?Ó Ð have not really beenexplored on those occasions. Supposedly art isart and the rest is the rest. Art, however,happens to be the rest, too.

My ImperialismForty years ago, I was invited to organize the artdepartment in a US university. I refused on thegrounds that art is not really Òart,Ó but a methodto acquire and expand knowledge. Consequently,art should shape all academic activities within auniversity and not be confined to a discipline. I

recognize that my position reflected a form ofart-imperialism, and this is something I stilladhere to. As in all imperialisms, my position wasnot necessarily based on solid information and Iused aggression as a tool for persuasion.Predictably, I was defeated, and shortly after wascondemned to solitary confinement in the artdepartment I had so proudly rejected. Yet I amunrepentant: I continue to operate with poorlyinformed opinions, I continue to be aggressive,and, to be sure, I will continue to be defeated.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊMy imperialism is based on a generalistview of art in which everything (including theÒrestÓ) can be seen as art. I also believe that thesocial structures that divide us into producersand consumers Ð those that ensure that our livesconform to the laws of the market instead ofseeking a collective well-being Ð should bedemolished. These were the views we developedas students during the late 1950s while I was inart school in Uruguay. These views took forgranted that such a broad definition of art, inwhich everybody could be a creator, wouldbecome a tool for improving society. We weredefeated then, and today these beliefs are

considered anachronistic and out of place.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊRegardless of their feasibility, theseperspectives had some importance because theyintroduced an awareness of the role anddistribution of power in matters of art andeducation that should not be ignored. Theyclarified claims surrounding the ownership ofknowledge, how that ownership is distributed,and who benefits from it. Even if these issues arenormally considered to be outside the scope ofart, it is on their account that the use of languageand the means of engaging illiteracy become

interesting to art.

Indoctrinating Subversion

Both art education and alphabetization have incommon the dual and often contradictorymission of facilitating individual and collectivecultural affirmation and expression on the onehand, and of being necessary tools to cementand expand forms of consumption on the other.Consequently, education is not only anideologically fractured field, but one in which

each of its ideologies assumes its own particularpedagogical approach to apply to all fields ofknowledge, overcoming all irresolvablecontradictions. When reasonably progressive,such pedagogies assume that one can ensurethe stability and smoothness of the existingsociety while at the same time forming criticallyquestioning, non-submissive, creativeindividuals. This approach takes for granted thateducation will create good, accepting citizenswho play by the rules, but who will also besubversive individuals attempting to change that

society. In a conservative pedagogical approach,the latter part of the mission will simply beignored.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊAs it is, the educational system emphasizesgood citizenship during the early stages offormation and postpones any potentialsubversion until the postgraduate level.Speculation and imagination are allowed onlyafter becoming a good citizen. In order for actualsubversion to take place, it would first have toaddress the earlier parts of the educationalprocess. This explains why alphabetization takesplace at the beginning of the educational voyagewhile true art-making is placed at its end, or isindeed postponed until after formal education isover.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe tension that emerges from this built-instability/instability contradiction creates twomain divisions in how education is approached:between ÒintegralismÓ and Òfragmentalism,Ó onthe one hand; and between tutorial educationand massive education, on the other. Althoughthe two divisions are not necessarily aligned witheach other, in traditional education,fragmentation tends to be coupled with massive

education. Here information is reified, classifiedinto disciplines, and simultaneously transmittedto large groups of people with the aim ofachieving an efficient conformist stability.Knowledge travels from the outside to the inside.The elements are distinct, and theirclassification and order are presumed to be goodand unchangeable. Power lies in the hands ofsomebody other than the student.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe second alignment is different. In moreprogressive education practices, integralismtends to be associated with a tutorial style of

instruction in which there is more room forinterdisciplinary research, encouragement of


Art and Literacy

03/07

08.11.10 / 18:10:47 UTC



My mother's pen.

discovery, and an emphasis on individualprocessing. While not necessarily seeking eithera flexible society or a critical analysis of oneÕsconnections to it, there is at the very least thisemphasis on individuation. And inasmuch as itincludes the possibility of a permanent critique,there is an empowerment of the individual in theform of an encouraged, self-aware perception ofthe world.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIt is this notion of empowerment thatcreates ideological differences between the twoalignments. As soon as empowerment isintroduced, the politics around the distributionof power becomes an indissoluble part of theeducational process. This can explain why themost paradigmatic pedagogical figures in LatinAmerica sought to develop not only the basicprocess of alphabetization within the field ofeducation, but also self- and social awareness.Both the Venezuelan Simn Rodr’guez(1769Ð1854) and the Brazilian Paulo Freire

(1921Ð1997) saw education as a form of buildinga progressive and just social community. In the1820s, Rodr’guez declared that education had todeal Òfirst with things, and second with thosewho own them.Ó2 In the 1960s, Freire wrote thatÒbefore learning how to read words, one shouldlearn how to read the world.Ó3 Both educatorsunderlined the importance of decoding the socialsituation prior to decoding the disciplines ofreading and writing.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIt is not surprising that this form of socialdecoding is easier to achieve through individual

exchanges rather than collective ones. Individualtutoring seems to be ideal. When the teacher canfocus all his or her energy and attention on oneperson, it allows for immediate calibration andresponse to the most minimal signs ofincomprehension. Done well, it takes theSocratic method to the level of extremepsychological therapy, making for a tailor-madeeducation for each individual. If the teacher is a

good one, this makes for perfection. Seen interms of efficiency, however, individual tutoringis the least economical strategy. It is nocoincidence that having a personal tutor is asymbol of wealth reserved for the upper classes,so it becomes paradoxical to expect this highlyelitist mechanism to also be the mostappropriate means of achieving a just andclassless society.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊOn the other hand, massive educationremains seductive for its apparent economicefficiency as well as its populist appeal. A

teacher can form tens or hundreds of individualswith the same investment of time and energythat a tutor makes for one. As far as theempowerment of the individual is concerned,however, massive education has the tendency todisseminate information and indoctrinate ratherthan to promote investigation and self-consciousness. In other words, striving forefficiency favors cheap output at the expense ofqualitative evaluation. Quality becomesassessed within an economic frame of reference.Alarmingly, this distortion is accepted as the

04/07

08.11.10 / 18:10:47 UTC



norm. Of course, there are tutors who inform andindoctrinate their students, just as there areteachers educating the masses who are able toraise awareness and empower them. In the firstcase, however, the tutor is betraying the teachingmission; in the second, the ideals are onlyreached by overcoming built-in obstacles.

Coding and Decoding How and What

Sixty-five years ago, when I was learning how towrite, I was forced to fill pages with the sameletter, repeating it over and over again. I had tocopy single letters before I was allowed to writewords. I was given words before I could expressother peopleÕs ideas, before I could express myown ideas, before I could even explore what myown ideas might be. It only occurred to me as anadult that, if I know how to write with a pencil, Ialso know how to draw with that pencil.4

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊFor my mother, educated in the Germany ofWorld War I, matters were even worse. She had to

use a pen designed specially Ð not for writing Ðbut for learning how to write. The pen looked as ifit had been designed for torture. Oval pieces ofsharp tin forced the placement of the fingers intoone particular position. If the fingers were not inthe required position, they would be hurt. Onecould speculate that these pens wereinstrumental in preparing for Nazi GermanyÕsethos of obedience.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊArt education has always been faced with aconfusion between art and craft: in teaching how

to do things, one often neglects the moreimportant question of what to do with them. Theconventional way of teaching how to writeconcentrates on readability and spelling, whichonly addresses the how of writing without regardto the what. Exemplified by the practice ofteaching someone how to write by concentratingon a frozen aesthetic feature such as calligraphy,this approach fails to first identify the need for amessage, which would then open an approach towriting that concerns the structure and clarity ofwhat is being written.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIn an exaggerated form, the pen synthesizeseverything I hated about my education: the

fragmentation of knowledge into airtightcompartments, the confusion between how-to-do and what-to-do, the development ofcommunication without first establishing theneed for it. It was like learning how to cookwithout first being hungry Ð without evenidentifying what hunger is. After all, education isless about being hungry than about awakeningappetite to create the need for consumption. Infact, I believe that this is how cooking is taught.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊWhy canÕt one first identify and explore theneed to communicate in order to then find a

proper way of communicating? Languagesthemselves are generated in this manner, and

this is how they evolve. Words are created todesignate things that had hitherto been eitherunknown or unnamable. TodayÕs spelling errorsdetermine tomorrowÕs writing. Many of thoseerrors are the simple product of an oral decodingthat overlays written coding. Of course, errorsshould be acknowledged Ð but they should alsobe subject to critical evaluation. As a derogatoryterm, ÒerrorÓ reflects a particular code-centrism

typical of our culture. Illiteracy is, after all, only aproblem within a literacy-based culture. Ingeneral, codes are created by a need to translatea message into signs, and then decoded by aneed to decipher the message. Through thiscoding and decoding, there is a process offeedback in which ÒimproperÓ or misplacedcodings produce evocations that change orenrich the message.

Finding DiscoveryWhen the reason to read and write is primarily to

receive and give orders, it is understandable thatthe need for learning should not be identified bythe person to be alphabetized, but by the samepower structure that produces those needs.Knowledge becomes predetermined and closedwhen both definition and identification areperformed within this restricted functional field,while a more open field would stimulatequestioning and creation. In essence, one cannoteducate properly without revealing the powerstructure within which education takes place.Without an awareness of this structure and theway it distributes power, indoctrinationnecessarily usurps the place of education.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊWhile this is true for education in general, itbecomes more insidious when applied to theteaching of reading and writing. In this case,indoctrination is not necessarily visible in thecontent, but instead seeps heavily into theprocess of transmission: if one is taught torepeat like a parrot, it doesnÕt really matter whatis actually being repeated; only the desiredautomatic, internalized act of repetition willremain. If we only teach to recognize things bytheir forms without addressing concepts, it wonÕt

matter what generates these forms. Only therecognition of the packaging will remain, andworse, the acquisition of knowledge will stopthere.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊA real education for an artist consists ofpreparation for a pure research of the unknown.In a strong art education, this starts at the verybeginning. But as institutional education in otherareas is organized to convey only knowninformation and to perpetuate conventionalhabits, these are two pedagogies in fundamentalconflict. Where, then, should the fight against

illiteracy be placed? Should alphabetization behandled as a subject for training or as a tool for


Art and Literacy

05/07

08.11.10 / 18:10:47 UTC



discovery?ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe question may be too schematic. In art,pure discovery leads to amateurism, while puretraining leads to empty professionalism Ð goodpreparation ultimately seeks a balance betweenthem. The question does not concern whichactivity should be eliminated, but rather whichone should inform the other. Those in favor oftraining often defend it with the need to supply

good scaffolding for the student. Yet if oneultimately hopes that discovery will be the mainpurpose of a studentÕs life, whether for self-realization or for collective enrichment, it is clearthat the student should not just learn to buildscaffolds.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊWe now find ourselves in an age when theamount of available knowledge far exceeds ourcapabilities for codification. The imbalance issuch that we must speculate on whether theconcept of restricted alphabetization based onthe re-presentation of known things may be an

unforgivable anachronism. We may have arrivedat a point where we need an education that goesfar beyond all this: one that first makes thesubject aware of the personal need for literacyand then identifies the coding systems already inuse, so that they may be used as a reference; onethat proceeds to activate translation processesas a primary tool for entering new codes; onethat, from the very beginning, fosters the abilityto reorder knowledge, to make unexpectedconnections that present rather than re-present.In other words, we need a pedagogy thatincludes speculation, analysis, and subversion ofconventions, one that addresses literacy in thesame way any good art education addresses art.This means putting literacy into the context ofart. By forcing art to focus on these things, inturn, the art empire itself will also be enriched.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ×This essay began as a paper presented at the 1stInternational Meeting on Education, Art and FunctionalIlliteracy, which took place in Rio de Janeiro, December 1Ð3,2008. The meeting was sponsored by Daros Latin Americaand co-organized by Eugenio ValdŽs, Director of Casa Darosin Rio de Janeiro, and myself as Pedagogical Curator of theIber• Camargo Foundation in Porto Alegre. After the meetingit was decided that we would pursue several objectives

within a continuing project we named Art-phabetization: a) tostudy institutional dynamics in existing organizations like theSamba schools to fight illiteracy among their members; b) toblur the borderlines between schools and theirneighborhoods and between schoolwork and leisure; c) tostudy the role of errors in the generation of metaphors andnew knowledge; d) to create a literacy or alphabetizationlaboratory to explore methodologies to be tested ininstitutional settings; e) to study the possibility of thecreation of mobile laboratories; f) to create a blog and aninteractive databank of exercises and games that connectsthe laboratory with literacy teachers.

Luis Camnitzer is a Uruguayan artist who has lived inthe USA since 1964, and an emeritus professor of artat the State University of New York, College at OldWestbury. He was the Viewing Program Curator for TheDrawing Center, New York, from 1999 to 2006. In 2007,he was the pedagogical curator for the 6th Bienal delMercosur. He is at present the pedagogical curator forthe Iber• Camargo Foundation in Porto Alegre. He isthe author of New Art of Cuba (1994/2004) andConceptualism in Latin American Art: Didactics of

Liberation (2007), both from University of Texas Press.


Art and Literacy

06/07

08.11.10 / 18:10:47 UTC



ÊÊÊÊÊÊ1According to a National AdultLiteracy Survey cited in 1996 byThe National Right to ReadFoundation, 42 million adultAmericans cannot read.According to a 2003 report by theNational Institute for Literacy,ÒThe mean prose literacy scoresof U.S. adults with primary or noeducation, ranked 14th out of 18high-income countries.Ó

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ2

Simn Rodr’guez, ObrasCompletas (Caracas: Edicionesdel Congreso de la Repœblica,1988), 1:356.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ3Later, Freire would rephrase thisby saying: ÒTo read a word and tolearn to write it to then read itare a consequence of learningthe writing of reality, of havinghad the experience of feelingreality and modifying it.Ó PauloFreire and Donaldo Macedo,Alfabetizaci Ð n: Lectura de lapalabra y lectura de la realidad(Barcelona: Paid Ð s, 1989), 67.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ4

In fact John Gadsby Chapmanhad already proclaimed thatÒAnybody who can learn to writecan learn to drawÓ in the firstlines of his The AmericanDrawing-Book (New York: J.S.Redfield, 1847), as quoted byArthur D. Efland in his History of Art Education (New York:Teachers College Press, 1990).


Art and Literacy

07/07

08.11.10 / 18:10:47 UTC

Art and Literacy by Luis Camnitzer

Documents

Transcript of Art and Literacy by Luis Camnitzer