Worksheet for the future

Name: Pronoun/s: A worksheet for the future: Re-thinking Art History Canons To canonise something is often to propose certain characteristics as exemplary or outstanding.

Within the history of art, canons have been studied through various Eurocentric and western cultures and have become, in various ways, foundational studies for the arts within institutions.

Within this worksheet, which we propose as a rehearsal to re-think canonisation, you nd nd a series of exercises designed to think through various ways - from visual forms to anecdotal surveys. In it, the audience is invited to help us think of ways to imagine the future of Art History.

At the end of it, you will nd a list of texts used and referenced.

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1. In O -modern Mirror by Svetlana Boym, she proposes the use of o as a pre x. Instead of thinking about post, anti, neo which could often suppose a linear form of history, Boym suggests that we can consider history in lateral manners. In the box below, consider the study of history and how we could further illustrate forms of surveying history. Can it be that of a shape, or could it be with di erent starting nodes?

2. In various tangents of Art History, contexts have always become intrinsic to the study. However, these contexts have been lacking in considering fractions of unknown minorities and even various layers of identities. For example, in Questioning the Canon by Baltimore Museum of Art, selections of work by African-American artists take centerstage and in it, to use the works as ways to “interrogate historical biases and claim space for a greater range of expressions of identity.”

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In the box below, we ask if you would like to take some time to illustrate a map in which you consider the various layers of identity and how you could perhaps nd modes of expression for each of these layers. These may not be immediate, tangential responses and the map can also be imagined as a series of archipelagos.

3. Often times, Art History Canons have been designed with various visual similarities of art works. These Canons have also been studied and surveyed with stories of the artists in mind.

They are also sometimes combined with ethnographic and autobiographical studies.

This section may take a bit more to answer and please do make appropriate time for yourself in the response. Select a range of works in which you have enjoyed from before. You can also take some time to view various works in various spaces for a response to this. In your response, we ask that you provide anecdotal accounts of your resonance, or even lack of, with the artworks and to imagine a story behind these. Could some of these then form a way for you to reconsider the relations of text with the artwork?

4. Thank you for taking time to respond to this worksheet. We acknowledge the labour of the responses. In this portion, we would like to consider the institution and the ways in which institutions attempt to mold through education. With this, we would like for you to consider some forms of knowledge in which you might had before attempting an institutional study of art. What are some questions you had before going into school and what are some beliefs that you had?

How can you track these questions and how these beliefs have changed over time? Consider various ways of expressing these changes.

5. In this nal portion, we would like to nds ways of de-colonising our understanding of histories.

In a talk by Shubigi Rao, she discusses strategies by artists in decolonising their work. For example, one proposed way is to consider how art was before colonisation. In Hendri Yulius’ writing, he proposes the concept of ‘portability’ as a way to let various Eurocentric theories have certain roots within the Southeast Asian landscape. In the box below, consider a packing list (or even to illustrate it) for a suitcase wherein various ideas that you think that you nd relevant can be packed on a trip back.

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Thank you for taking time with this!

Reading List 1. The O -Modern Mirror by Svetlana Boym https://www.e- ux.com/journal/19/67475/the-o -modern-mirror/ 2. Questioning the Canon by The Baltimore Museum of Art https://artsandculture.google.com/story/questioning-the-canon-baltimore-museum-of-art/ UgXhHC1bTnB0Kg?hl=en 3. Meet the Curator: Shubigi Rao With Kochi Biennale Foundation

4. Queer Theory: A Note from Indonesia by Hendri Yulius

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https://www.newmandala.org/queer-theory-a-note-from-indonesia/