Convenings

Past Learning Exchange Reports:
Seattle, May 5–7, 2002

Henry Art Gallery Debriefs: Visual Thinking Strategy (VTS)

Led by Tamara Moats, Curator of Education, Henry Art Gallery and Bridget Nowlin, Gene(sis) Public Programs Coordinator

Debrief Participants:  Tamara Moats, Pat Romney, Elizabeth Ross, Jay Brause, Bart Mills

Note:  The visual art referred to in this discussion includes works from the Henry Art Gallery’s ADI project, Gene(sis):  Contemporary Art Explores Human Genomics. 

Observations and Discoveries

• Visual art allows individual to pick and choose, so it's important to go through with someone.  I needed help to learn this.  I would like to study this method. It's a great learning method. 
• Jay:  Architecture.  Visual arts spaces need a better environments.  When the work is about revealing, hard, reflective surfaces and high ceilings that swallow volume make it difficult to hear people.
• Time – so many ideas with the people in the room, needed more time to talk. 
• Pat:  Regarding the art itself (Eduardo Kac’s Genesis):  the idea that new life is being created; VTS all made the issues very clear.
• How do the pieces stand just as art; and with the scientific questions?  Needed more information to see how the work was created; delicate dance between science and arts.  The comment in guest book by a microbiologist who didn't think that the artists had any connection to the scientists.  Perceptions of artists held by scientists; disconnects between the two worlds.  (3 commissioned pieces not discussed involved both scientists and artists; but there are still some errors the science of it.) 
• A way for viewers unfamiliar with the art form to get the tools they need to feel comfortable with it.  Trying to make art accessible to everyone. 
• This method allows you to open up to the message.  You can allow yourself to be playful and free associate, which is one of the most important levels of interpretation.

Questions and Answers
Bart: Does the method require an in-depth knowledge of the subject matter? 

Tamara: It's important to know the exhibition, but you don't have to be an expert on it.  You need to know the links between the works.  I tell teachers that they don't have to learn in-depth; they need a creative mind and an ability to do improv with the students.  Some historical background helps, but you don't need in-depth knowledge.  You need some basic knowledge about the visual arts:  line/shape/organic/abstract/foreground/etc.  You don't need complicated vocabulary.  Meaning is most important for me. 

Jay: Is it OK to go too far?  To impute more meaning than the artist intended?

Tamara: Yes.  It's important if you know some of the basic background of the work not to let the discussion go too far off the deep end.  Seeing concrete landscapes in a Jackson Pollock painting, for instance. 

Bart: What do you do when a student completely misinterprets a work?

Tamara: I usually try to continue the discussion to explore the logic of their responses; usually, the students will come around to a more reasonable reading of the work.  You don't want to make them feel stupid. 

Bart: I noticed that VTS provides opportunities for affirmation; opportunities to get an answer right. 

Tamara: Right.  Eliciting information from students instead of telling them something and then responding with good body language are important parts of the process.

Pat: Is this method written up?

Tamara: Yes, and Phillip Yenawine has writings and a fabulous video that present this material. The video is available from the Art Institute of Chicago (called What You See.) 

Jay: And this method is good for adults?  (Yes)  I know some highly educated and intelligent people who won't participate in art events if they don't know the art form.  They need a way to get the tools they need to feel comfortable with it.  This is really helpful.

Jay: Would this method work with traditional arts openings with 200 people where the imperative is to socialize, and the art is forgotten?  How would we use this model in that setting?  Or should we use this mainly during the post-opening daily shows? 

Tamara: We did a dialogue in the auditorium with groups of 60 or so people.  We could have broken the groups down even more.  We struggle with that.  We could take groups down to the galleries during the opening.  The audience we worked with before was primed, willing, and ready to do that. 

Bart: How does this work with children?

Tamara: Younger kids tell stories upon stories; older kids have to be tricked into participating. 

How would we adapt/change this for ABCD?

• Bart:  It worked well to transition into the ethics of the science; that conversation launched by itself.  Of course, we were in the mindset to do that; I don't know if that would have happened with a group of students. 
• Town Hall forum – this is the first time that the dialogue will happen outside of the gallery.  If removed from the art, then what happens?  Is it “just dialogue” if too removed from the art?   Trying to tie into a whole new audience, which includes politicians and environmentalists, available at Town Hall.  We're hoping to pull the information from the Museum and take it to this new crowd.  We hope that the crowd then comes to the museum.  These issues work perfectly within that town hall milieu.