Getting Yourself and Your Students Ready
Whether you are bringing your students to CI:99/00 for a one-hour tour of the exhibition or are planning a series of visits, preparation is key to each visit’s success.

In addition to familiarizing your students with what their visit will entail—from their arrival at the museum to the nature of their visit and what follow-up assignments or discussions are planned—it is also important to prepare them for looking and thinking about contemporary art. There are many methods for introducing contemporary 
art. In the following sections, we include ideas for teacher preparation, prompts for classroom discussion, and tips for approaching contemporary art.

A 30-minute videotape that introduces the 1999 Carnegie International, the process of its development, three of its artists, and the challenges of contemporary art will be available to teachers after the exhibition has opened. This orientation video was developed for middle and high school students with the assistance of a CI:99/00 student advisory committee. See the “Video and Supplement Request Form” to reserve a copy of the video tape for your school.

DISCUSSION
Before your museum visit, take advantage of student perspectives about art in general, contemporary art in particular, and what students expectations for their visits to CI:99/00 are. Talking about art, especially contemporary art, requires critical thinking skills. The discussion process further engages students in a dynamic form of communication that challenges and offers insights to its participants. Discussion prompts to initiate group discussion or personal consideration about contemporary art follows in a later section. These prompts are divided into general prompts and those appropriate to specific disciplines. You may find them useful to postvisit discussions as well, at which time previsit and postvisit responses can be compared.

TEACHER PREPARATION
While many individuals value the challenge presented by contemporary art, many others are quick to dismiss it. It is important for teachers to be prepared for students’ reactions, both positive and negative, and to encourage substantive evaluation of their responses. Consider the following recommendations for facilitating discussion about contemporary art:

•	Remain neutral. Be able to support both sides of an argument and to handle escalating discussion
•	Provide a comfortable classroom environment. Encourage questions and accept all responses as avenues for discussion.
•	Take advantage of resources that increase accessibility to artists (artist profiles and statements from the exhibition, books, Internet, etc.)
•	Provide a variety of opportunities for student feedback (oral and/or written).

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Discussion Prompts

GENERAL

•	Why do people make art?
•	Who can be an artist?
•	Who do artists produce artworks for?
•	What kinds of messages do you think artists try to convey through their artwork?
•	What kinds of materials can be used to make art?
•	Does art affects your everyday life?
•	How do you define realism? How do you define conceptual or expressive art? Which do you prefer? Why?
•	How important is it for an artist to be able to reproduce nature? Why?
•	Some artworks are created for practical purposes. For what other reasons are artworks created?
•	How do you define “good” art?
•	If you had to select a contemporary artwork for a museum, what characteristics would you look for? How would your selection of a contemporary artwork for your home differ?
•	Compare and contrast the experiences of looking at original artwork and looking at reproductions of artwork.

VISUAL ARTS

•	Provide three reasons why people decorate objects used in daily life.
•	Provide three reasons why artists use objects from everyday life in their artwork.
•	How important is the size of an artwork?
•	What associations do colors, forms, textures, and shapes have for you?
•	Why do you think artists choose certain colors, forms, textures, and shapes?
•	Discuss the elements of a portrait while comparing and contrasting a contemporary portrait with one from another time period.
•	Why wouldn’t an artist want to paint people, places, or things?

SOCIAL STUDIES AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES

•	How do artists provide clues about themselves and their identity in their art?
•	What can artwork tell us about an artist and where they come from?
•	Compare and contrast the reasons why people in two different cultures make art. Consider social, religious, political, and cultural influences.
•	Observe an artwork created outside the U.S. Would people who live in the country where the artwork was made respond differently to it than people who live in the U.S.? Why or why not?
•	How can political situations affect artmaking?
•	Discuss the role of visual arts in recording the development of cultures?
•	Discuss the use of symbols, examining both universal symbols and symbols with culture-specific meanings.
•	How do the needs, values, and traditions of a culture determine what art forms are created?
•	How do encounters between diverse cultures impact images and identities?
•	How do you think living in an increasingly global society has changed/will change the world of art?
•	How does community influence artmaking? Consider familial and other social structures and their traditions/customs.
•	How do myths and legends inspire and appear in art?
•	Discuss how art maintains a record of history.
•	Compare and contrast portraits from different cultures to examine various ways artists portray themselves and others within their societies.
•	Discuss how artists are/have been received by society in different cultures and/or time periods.

LANGUAGE ARTS

•	How important are titles to artworks?
•	How do myths and legends inspire and appear in art?
•	Discuss the use of text in the visual arts.
•	Discuss various ways to tell a story without using written words, and how a story’s meaning does or does not change when presented in different forms.
•	Examine the use of metaphors and analogies in artworks.
•	Examine the biographical/autobiographical role of visual arts.

SCIENCE AND MATH

•	Discuss how laws of physics have been or could be applied in the creation of artwork.
•	Examine how artists and architects apply geometry in their work. Can discuss symmetry, line, forms, the golden ratio, pentominoes, tessellations, etc.
•	Examine the use of fractals in art.
•	Discuss how grids are used in the artmaking process.
•	Discuss how artists and architects develop drawings and models to scale.
•	Discuss how the laws of optics apply to artworks, observing how artists use light and shadow in their artworks.

MUSIC AND THEATER

•	Discuss the use of sound in contemporary art installations, video, etc. How would a piece be affected if sound was removed/amplified?
•	Compare and contrast how concepts in theater, such as lighting, color, body movement, voice, color, etc., are applied in visual arts.

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Tips for Approaching Contemporary Art

Looking at or experiencing contemporary art is not always an easy or pleasurable experience. Following are tips for approaching contemporary art and ideas for initiating the process of looking at contemporary art. These 
tips can by discussed or presented to your students prior to their museum visit. 

AS YOU WALK THROUGH THE GALLERIES:

•	Look around the entire exhibition to get the big picture.
•	Spend more time looking closely at a handful of works that catch your eye. Contemporary art can be quite challenging, and it may take some time to gather meaning from a contemporary artwork.
•	Think about the artworks in a broader context. Do they relate to other works you’ve seen, the world outside the museum’s walls, or your own experiences?
•	Instead of telling a story, some contemporary art may evoke feelings, impressions, and ideas that are difficult to express in words.
•	Like athletes whose training makes difficult moves look easy, artists often bring years of experience, concentration, and practice to make art that looks effortless.
•	Contemporary artists may challenge us to think about how we define art. If you see something you don’t like, it may not fit your definition of art.
•	Look for more information on the artworks you are viewing in gallery labels, gallery guides, exhibition catalogs, videotapes, and on the Internet.

AS YOU LOOK AT THE ARTWORKS:

•	Trust your responses. There is no right or wrong reaction to an artwork. Art can be interpreted in many ways, and artists themselves often suggest many possibilities. Which response do you feel work best?
•	If you are viewing artwork with others, share your responses to what you see. Since everyone brings their own personal experiences and feelings to works of art, your ideas may be different from someone else’s. Your own understanding can be enhanced by listening carefully to others’ ideas and interpretations. Your reactions may change over time as you share your responses with others or as you gain different life experiences.
•	For artworks that have recognizable subject matter, try to figure out what is going on by looking at individual elements. Try to piece together a story based on what you see. Continue to look at the artwork for evidence of your interpretation.
•	If you find an artwork difficult to enjoy, you may want to try finding one thing about it that someone else might like.
•	Contemporary art can, and sometimes is intended to, provoke strong reactions. What feelings does your response arouse? What in the artwork is causing them?

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