John Baldacchino – författare

Art as Unlearning makes an argument for art’s unlearning as a manneristpedagogy. Art’s pedagogy facilitates a form of forgetfulness by extending what happens in the practice of the arts in their visual, auditory and performative forms. The concept of learning has become predominantly hijacked by foundational paradigms such as developmental narratives whose positivistic approach has limited the field of education to a narrow practice within the social sciences. This book moves away from these strictures by showing how the arts confirm that unlearning is not contingent on learning, but rather anticipates and avoids it.

This book cites the experience and work of artists who, by unlearning the canon, have opened a diversity of possibilities by which we make and live the world. Moving beyond clichés of art’s teachability and what we have to learn through the arts, it advances a scenario where unlearning is uniquely presented to us by the diverse practices that we identify with the arts. The very notion of art as unlearning stems from and represents a fundamental critique of the constructivist pedagogies that have dominated arts education for over half a century.

This book will be of great interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of education, philosophy of education, history of education, pedagogy of art and art education. It will also appeal to educators, art educators, and artists interested in the pedagogy of art.

Art as Unlearning makes an argument for art’s unlearning as a manneristpedagogy. Art’s pedagogy facilitates a form of forgetfulness by extending what happens in the practice of the arts in their visual, auditory and performative forms. The concept of learning has become predominantly hijacked by foundational paradigms such as developmental narratives whose positivistic approach has limited the field of education to a narrow practice within the social sciences. This book moves away from these strictures by showing how the arts confirm that unlearning is not contingent on learning, but rather anticipates and avoids it.

This book cites the experience and work of artists who, by unlearning the canon, have opened a diversity of possibilities by which we make and live the world. Moving beyond clichés of art’s teachability and what we have to learn through the arts, it advances a scenario where unlearning is uniquely presented to us by the diverse practices that we identify with the arts. The very notion of art as unlearning stems from and represents a fundamental critique of the constructivist pedagogies that have dominated arts education for over half a century.

This book will be of great interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of education, philosophy of education, history of education, pedagogy of art and art education. It will also appeal to educators, art educators, and artists interested in the pedagogy of art.

Originally published in 1998, Easels of Utopia presents a discussion of art''s duration and contingency within the avant garde''s aesthetic parameters, which throughout this century have constructed, influenced, and informed our definitions of modernity. In this context the book reads Umberto Boccioni''s Futurism as reminiscent of Thomist realism; proposes Caravaggism''s historical relevance to the election of individuality in post-war realism; and draws the readers attention to the aesthetic implications in Carlo Carrà''s metaphysical art and its reappraisal of the early Renaissance. Following a contextual analysis of the historic avant-garde in Part One, Part Two presents parallel discussions of Italian and British questions, articulated by the works of Marino Marini, Francis Bacon, Renato Guttuso and Stanley Spencer in their return to individuality within art''s aesthetic construct. The author argues that this initiates a return to ''lost'' beginnings where form seeks knowledge, content regains an ability to anarchize, and art recognizes its contingent condition.

Originally published in 1998, Easels of Utopia presents a discussion of art''s duration and contingency within the avant garde''s aesthetic parameters, which throughout this century have constructed, influenced, and informed our definitions of modernity. In this context the book reads Umberto Boccioni''s Futurism as reminiscent of Thomist realism; proposes Caravaggism''s historical relevance to the election of individuality in post-war realism; and draws the readers attention to the aesthetic implications in Carlo Carrà''s metaphysical art and its reappraisal of the early Renaissance. Following a contextual analysis of the historic avant-garde in Part One, Part Two presents parallel discussions of Italian and British questions, articulated by the works of Marino Marini, Francis Bacon, Renato Guttuso and Stanley Spencer in their return to individuality within art''s aesthetic construct. The author argues that this initiates a return to ''lost'' beginnings where form seeks knowledge, content regains an ability to anarchize, and art recognizes its contingent condition.

Originally published in 1996, Post-Marxist Marxism is a discussion of realism in a Post-Marxist context. The book argues that this discussion must take two simultaneous routes: recognizing deconstruction as the tool of enquiry to disentangle the insufficiency of contemporary answers in political philosophy and aesthetics, and reclaiming realism to move beyond the Post-Modernist tradition. To answer the issues of realism, the book revisits Lucacs'' and Adorno''s aesthetic questions, which in their different approaches prefigured the questions of the present. Central issues include totality; method; identarian and non-identarian dialects; the Enlightenment; and the end of Modernity.

Originally published in 1996, Post-Marxist Marxism is a discussion of realism in a Post-Marxist context. The book argues that this discussion must take two simultaneous routes: recognizing deconstruction as the tool of enquiry to disentangle the insufficiency of contemporary answers in political philosophy and aesthetics, and reclaiming realism to move beyond the Post-Modernist tradition. To answer the issues of realism, the book revisits Lucacs'' and Adorno''s aesthetic questions, which in their different approaches prefigured the questions of the present. Central issues include totality; method; identarian and non-identarian dialects; the Enlightenment; and the end of Modernity.