Dana Katz

ARTE 344
November 7, 2016
Freedman Facilitation Chapter 3
Title: The Social Life of Art
Author(s): Kerry Freedman
Source/Date:
Freedman, K. J. (2003). Teaching visual culture: Curriculum, aesthetics, and the social life of
art. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Main Idea/Purpose (2-3 sentences):
In Chapter three, Freedman (2003) talks about how the in order to evaluate and critically
look at visual culture and current art, the past, present and future must be considered (p. 43).
Though visual culture and advertising are a newer form of art, they have been influenced by the
past and it is important for students to understand how the past lives on in the present and future.
Short Overview (Including at least 2-3 important quotes):
In order to understand visual culture as art, students must first take a look at past art and
what was considered good. As discussed by Freedman, history is not the past. It is a
reconstruction of the past that involves interpretations of events and objects (p. 44). Starting with
the 19th century, connoisseurships played a huge part in determining what art was considered
good. People in this role looked at when art was made and who made in it order to determine
the appraisal value. Though a part of history, popular art and visual art were not considered a
worthy part of art history. In fact, in order to get information on such areas, art educators have
had to go to different departments to understand the production and use of visual culture. Today,
teachers have taken on a new style of teaching art history in which they attempt to supplement
what is lacking in art history books by adding additional reading about diverse artists.
The new style of teaching art history focuses less on objects and styles and more on
social influences and dynamics of cultural development. Though a timeline was previously used
to go through history, time now should be taught as multidimensional space, rather than a line
and attention should be given to important connections. Looking at contexts when assessing an
image is a great tool to help students with understanding and making meaning. As discussed in
chapter three, context can be divided into two categories. Production context are situations in
which the visual culture is created and involves the artist and milieu. Viewing contexts are
environments in which visual culture is seen and used such as classrooms and museums. Viewers
and milieu are found in this category. As stated by Freedman, context is a part of visual culture.
It provides conceptual connections that make images and objects worthy of study and is as much
a part of a work of art as its form, function or symbolic meaning (p. 51).
Quality should also be discussed in the new art history curriculum. Determining what has
previously and currently defined quality can also help students understand important past and
present art images. Traditionally, only good art was taught in classrooms. However, as
discussed by Freedman, visual art that is considered good for one group may hurt others and the

complexity of this relationship needs to be considered part of educational experience (p. 51). In
order to overcome this, bad qualities of art should be addressed as well, especially in terms of
visual culture. Standards should not be lowered for quality when addressing art to teach. Artwork
should still be considered good quality, but also be powerful and have a strong influence over the
way people think about the world.
Critical Response: Reflections and/or relevance to personal art educational experiences/or
teaching experience
This chapter could be very essential to developing a visual culture curriculum. It is
assumed that with the growth of technology and greater access to ads, visual culture is a current
form of artwork. However, everything in the world has been influenced by the past. When
assessing artwork and finding meaning, students need to be able to look at the work and
understand the time period surrounding it. Without background knowledge about the time period
in which a piece was developed, a student might interpret a piece with two males to represent a
homosexual couple, when that might not be appropriate or fitting to the time period in which it
was constructed. It is also crucial to teach students about bad qualities of work. It helps them
understand why some art is more influential than others, and what distinguished one piece of art
to be considered good and another bad. Previously good art was established by connoisseurship
focusing on the qualities and styles of a piece. Today, the art that we find to be important are
pieces based more on social influences and dynamics of cultural development (p. 47). Students
need to be taught the difference to understand how art history is changing and how visual culture
is growing.