Teaching Art as If the World Mattered

Beginning of article

I borrowed the theme for this issue of the journal from the title of Chapter 7 in Suzi Gablik's book The Reenchantment of Art (1991): "Making Art as if the World Mattered."This theme captures the essence of what our direction and effort in life ought to be. Questions and musings about the world, and each person's place within it, should become central to art education. A pivotal question to ask ourselves is, "How can art be taught in a meaningful way if we as teachers fail to recognize the influential world in which art is made and also disregard important issues of the world wherein we live?"

Gablik (1991), in Chapter 7, submits multiple examples of artists who fuse life and …