516 Central Ave SW Albuquerque, NM 87102 t. 505-242-1445 www.516arts.org Education Packet Floyd D. Tunson: Son of Pop BEFORE YOUR VISIT This curriculum meets APS standards 2, 3b, 4, 5, and 6B by developing students capacity to describe art, understand art in historical contexts, build vocabulary, and analyze, discuss and interpret Contemporary art. Discussion Questions 1. What are some ways that we gather, use and reinterpret information? From what sources do we draw from? 2. What role does context play with regard to influencing someone s understanding of an object, image or action? How does changing that context effect our interpretation? 3. What is a retrospective? What do you suppose it can tell you about an artist s body of work?
GLOSSARY OF TERMS Abstract art: a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Artist-in-residency/artist-in-residence: is when an art gallery invites an artist or group of artists and curators to produce and present works of art in an environment different from their own in hopes to expose them and the community to new ideas and experiences. Assemblage: is an artistic process. In the visual arts, it consists of making three-dimensional or two-dimensional artistic compositions by putting together found objects. Collage: is a technique of an art production, primarily used in the visual arts where the artwork is made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. Collaboration: multiple artists working together on the same piece or creating similar works around the same theme. Conceptual Art: is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Contemporary Art: can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. Curator: is a manager or overseer of an art exhibition and often the content specialist responsible for the planning, organizing and mounting an exhibition. The curator often chooses what type of art will be exhibited based on a personal or collective aesthetic. Electronic art: is a form of art that makes use of electronic media or, more broadly, refers to technology and/or electronic media. Ephemeral: Refers to things or objects that are transitory, existing only briefly. Exhibition: in the most general sense, is an organized presentation and display of a selection of items. Exhibitions may be permanent displays or temporary, but in common usage, exhibitions are considered temporary and usually scheduled to open and close on specific dates. Figurative Art: particularly paintings and sculptures which are clearly derived from real object sources, and are therefore by definition representational. Installation art: Installation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works (although can also exist as 2D as well) that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Interdisciplinary: the combination of two or more academic fields into one single discipline. Illusion: is a distortion of the senses, revealing how the brain normally organizes and interprets sensory stimulation. Juxtaposition: putting two images next to one another that are not alike or images that would not normally be put together. Medium: refers to the substance the artist uses to create his or her artwork.
Mixed-media: in visual art refers to an artwork in the making of which more than one medium has been employed. Multimedia: describes a combination of text, audio, still images, animation, video or interactive content forms. Museum: is an institution that cares for (conserves) a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, cultural, or historical importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. Non-Profit Organization: refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals rather than to distribute them as profit or dividends. Nonobjective Art: Is another way to refer to Abstract art or nonrepresentational art. Essentially, the artwork does not represent or depict a person, place or thing in the natural world. Usually, the content of the work is its color, shapes, brushstrokes, size, scale, and, in some cases, its process. Representational Art: art that uses signs or imagery that stand in for and take the place of something else that exists in the real world. Retrospective: Generally means to take a look back at events that already have taken place. Sculpture: is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three-dimensions, and one of the plastic arts and can be made from a wide variety of materials may be worked by removal such as carving, assembled by welding or modeling, or molded, or cast. Subversion: refers to an attempt to transform the established social order and its structures of power, authority and hierarchy, and refers to a process by which the values and principles of a system in place, are contradicted or reversed. Two-dimensional space: is a geometric model of the planar projection of the physical universe in which we live. The two dimensions are commonly called length and width and refers to a flat picture plane. Examples of 2D work include: painting, drawing etc.. Three-dimensional space: is a geometric 3-parameters model of the physical universe (without considering time) in which we exist. These three dimensions can be labeled by a combination of three chosen from the terms, length, width, height and depth. Examples of 3D work include: sculpture, ceramics etc...
DURING YOUR VISIT Look carefully at the works on view: What do you see or notice? What can you tell about how this image was made? What is the mood or feeling of the work? How is it expressed? What do you think this work is about? Why? Also consider: If the work is a part of a series, how are the individual works alike? How do they differ? What does each individual piece contribute to the larger body of work? What do they contribute to the theme of the exhibition? Student Worksheet Answer the following questions on another sheet of paper, if you come across a word you are unfamiliar with, consult the glossary of terms. 1. Find one artwork in the exhibition you like and describe the way it looks visually. What type of artwork is it? Can you tell what type of materials were used to create it? What colors does the artist use? Is it big, small etc...? Why do you like it? 2. Find one artwork in the exhibition you don t like and describe the way it looks visually. What type of artwork is it? Can you tell what type of materials were used to create it? What colors does the artist use? Is it big, small etc...? Why don t you like it? 3. Find one artwork that uses materials in an interesting way. Have you ever seen anything like it before? If so, where? 4. After you ve seen the entire exhibition, situate yourself in the front gallery and examine the large installation on the entry wall. Describe what you are seeing What kind of message do you think the artist is trying to convey?
5. Are there similar themes or ideas that are consistent throughout the exhibition in its entirety? If so, what are they? 6. How does the artwork make you feel? 7. Throughout the exhibition, the artist is constantly referencing other artists who have made important contributions in a broader art historical context. Can you identify any of them? Name as many as you can. 8. All the paintings in the exhibition have some reference to figuration with the exception of two. Can you find and identify them? What was the artist inspired by? 9. In several of the paintings from the Remix series, the artist combines imagery from both art history and popular culture. Find the piece you think is most successful and speculate as to why the artist might have done what he did. 10. Find the oldest work in the exhibition and compare it with the newest work. Are there any major differences in thematic material and technical approaches between the two? If so what are they? Which do you like better, and why?
Floyd D. Tunson: Son of Pop This exhibition is a solo retrospective of the work of Floyd D. Tunson, a Colorado-based artist, who for over four decades has been among the most highly regarded and influential artists in the Rocky Mountain region. He has achieved a rich and diverse body of work that includes painting, sculpture, photography, printmaking and mixed media. The exhibition features various series through which Tunson has addressed concepts of cultural identity, American social history, race and class relations in the United States and abroad, pop culture, art history and the beauty of pure abstraction. Tunson says that from one direction he sees the terror of chaos, man s inhumanity to man, mortality and the unknown. From another direction, the human condition seems like a magnificent, orderly evolution of extraordinary beauty. He states that the totality of his work reflects his quest to comprehend and express these forces and their interconnectedness. Over his career, Tunson has earned a reputation as one of the region s leading art teachers while simultaneously creating his own work and exhibiting nationally. Tunson s art is included in the collections of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, the Denver Art Museum, the Kaiser-Permanente Corporation, the Walter O. Evans Collection of African-American Art, and many private collections nationwide.
AFTER YOUR VISIT Discussion Questions After viewing Son of Pop, are you reminded of any current social issues? As a retrospective, the works in the exhibition span 30 plus years. How have things changed since Floyd began making work. Do these issues ever truly go away? If not, how do we deal with them? What are some of the central themes being addressed in Floyd s work and how are they represented? Floyd s a very politically engaged artist and deals with challenging topics like racism, violence and cultural representation. How do aesthetics figure into everything? Are there ways in which he presents these topics visually as to make them easier to look at and discuss? Are there ways in which he does the opposite? Much of Floyd s work address the black experience in contemporary society. Observe the numerous ways in which the Black subject is portrayed, what do you notice? Do you notice any changes over time? Project Ideas In the classroom or at home, take a reproduction of a famous artwork and do your own remixing of it through adding additional elements, colors or images to re-contextualize it. Write a few sentences about what you did and how it reflects your own personal narrative and your relationship with the original image. Using Floyd s assemblages from Son of Pop as inspiration, build/assemble an artwork made from objects you have re-purposed; This could be anything you find at home, school etc... Write a few sentences that describe it and why you chose the things you did. Make an artwork as a response to a current event you have read about or saw on television. This could include topics such as social, environmental or global concerns, or even local issues. How