Finding Art's Place

Nicholas Paley is Associate Professor in the Department of Teacher Preparation and Special Education at the George Washington University.

"Paley's book documents his investigation of the "educational forces that engage children with the arts outside the academy"...Instrumental values ascribe developmental, intellectual, and expressive advantages to the study of art...He acknowledges the important role of community in shaping young people's world views, and he depicts their art activities as essential to their lives. In describing and analyzing the work of three different youth art initiatives, Paley presents children's artistic activity as a legitimate cultural contribution..." -- Journal of Educational Thought, Winter '96"The critical core of Paley's premise is engaging: his positionings of the young people he discusses as art practitioners subverts our response to them as students, victims, or simply precocious teens. His introduction situates their projects in a theoretical discourse, consciously removing the trite language of art education from our reception of them. In examining each experiment, Paley uses voices not only of critics, scholars and mentors but also of the young practitioners themselves, showing us not only what these children have been taught, but, more important, what they've learned." -- ookForum (ArtForum)

• 1. Positionings; 2. Tim Rollins and K.O.S.; 3. Sadie Benning; 4. Shooting Back; 5. Partitives.