Art S Way Out

In taking the critique of inclusion and entry as a first step, Art’s Way Out’s discussion of art, politics and learning aims to delineate what an exit pedagogy would look like: where culture is neither seen as a benign form of inclusion nor as a hegemonic veil by which we are all subscribed to the system via popularized forms of artistic and cultural immediacy. An exit pedagogy—as prefigured in what could be called art’s way out through the implements of negative recognition qua impasse—would not only avoid the all too facile symmetrical dualism between conservative and progressive, liberal and critical pedagogies, but also seek the continuous referral of such symmetries by setting them aside and look for a way out of the confined edifices of education and culture per se. An exit pedagogy seeks its way out by reasserting representation in the comedic, the jocular, and more effectively in the arts’ power of pausing, as that most effective way by which aesthetics comes to effect in its autonomist and radical essence. In this fluent, limpid, and scholarly work, Baldacchino examines, inter alia, the problem of empathy in relation to art as an event (or series of events), drawing upon a wide and rich range of sources to inform what in effect is his manifesto. With a profound understanding of its philosophical basis, Baldacchino unfolds his argument in an internally consistent and elegantly structured way. This is not a book to be ‘dipped into’, to do so would miss the development of Baldacchino’s philosophical position; like an art work itself, Art’s Way Out has coherent structure, and a complex, interrelation between form and content, reflecting an artist’s concern for getting things right. — Richard Hickman, Cambridge University Although art has a limitless capacity to take on myriad responsibilities, according to Baldacchino we also need to consider a ‘way out’ because only then will we understand how art goes beyond the “boundaries of possibility.” As he explains, “our way into reason also comes from an ability to move outside the limits that reasons sets”. This is the ‘exit pedagogy’ that he advocates. And here exit does not mean to leave, but rather to reach beyond, to extend and explore outside the borders we impose on learning, teaching, schooling and most forms of cultural agency. The need to embrace the capacity of art to cycle beyond the contingencies we impose on it also helps to clarify the limits of inclusive arguments for deploying art education for various individual, institutional, and socio-political ends: art as self expression, art as interdisciplinary method, art as culture industry, art as political culture, art as social justice and so on. This image invokes for me part of the legacy of Maxine Greene that Baldacchino revealed in his earlier text, Education Beyond Education (2009), when he explored her thesis of the social imagination, which is best, achieved when teaching becomes ‘reaching.’ What Art’s Way Out gives us is an exit strategy from the deadening tendency to ignore the enduring capacity of art to give life to learning, teaching and the very culture of our being. — Graeme Sullivan, Penn State University This is the sixth book authored by John Baldacchino, the other most recent books being Education Beyond Education. Self and the Imaginary in Maxine Greene’s Philosophy (2009) and Makings of the Sea: Journey, Doubt, and Nostalgia (2010). Currently Associate Dean at the School of Art & Design, University College Falmouth in England, he was full time member of faculty at Columbia University’s Teachers College in New York, Gray’s School of Art in Scotland and Warwick University in England. Front cover image: Monument to Marx / we should have spoken more (2009) by Mike Ting

A groundswell of interest has led to significant advances in understanding and using Culturally Responsive Arts Education to promote social justice and education. This landmark volume provides a theoretical orientation to these endeavors. Examining a range of efforts across different forms of art, various educational settings, and diverse contexts, it foregrounds the assets of imagination, creativity, resilience, critique and cultural knowledge, working against prevailing understandings of marginalized groups as having deficits of knowledge, skills, or culture. Emphasizing the arts as a way to make something possible, it explores and illustrates the elements of social justice arts education as "a way out of no way" imposed by dominance and ideology. A set of powerful demonstrations shows how this work looks in action. Introductions to the book as a whole and to each section focus on how to use the chapters pedagogically. The conclusion pulls back the chapters into theoretical and pedagogical context and suggests what needs done to be done practically, empirically, and theoretically, for the field to continue to develop.

Advocates for integrating liberal arts with management in a new undergraduate curriculum blending technical and analytic acumen with creativity, critical thinking, and ethical intelligence.

Making a case for cultural participation by older adults to enhance the quality of their lives and building on concepts of adult human development and empowerment, Elizabeth Brooke reframes 'active ageing' to include forms of creative expression and cultural participation crucial to transforming later stages of the life course.

John Tusa has been Managing Director of London's Barbican Centre for more than a decade. In that time, he has been a notable controversialist, speaking up for the need for the arts, defending their achievements and arguing for more funding. This selection of John Tusa's passionately argued, candid and challenging essays on the arts in Britain today is informed by a lifetime's experience of the arts and a current position at the centre of the British arts scene. Tusa seeks out the ways in which the arts can be made to blossom in this cultural and political climate, with cuts in arts funding ever threatened. His subjects include the art of living without objectives, and whether leadership in the arts is a mystery or good sense. He tells the true story of arts philanthropy and offers more personal pieces, for example on the great power of music. He also presents a light hearted 'ABC of the ARTS' and imagines what Ten Commandments for the Arts might look like. His own philosophy, which informs his successful management of the Barbican, is refreshing and instructive and he of course looks to the future with prescience. Most of all his is a call for us urgently to think about why art matters so crucially for us all.