The projects on this page were designed for the advanced art student and give students more freedom and responsibility for following their own interests. Like the projects for grades 9 and 10, these projects are based on problems from contemporary art. The More Than Meets the Eye projects cover a wide range of media, while the New Foundations projects focus on issues from Post-Modern art.
While these projects were created specifically for the International Baccalaureate visual arts program, the can be adapted to any advanced art course that requires the exploration of contemporary art concepts.
New Foundations projects are based on Olivia Gude’s Post-Modern Principles. Students should watch, I’m OK, You’re OK – a brief look at the development of postmodern art before starting the NF projects to get some background on post-modernism. Either the teacher or students will make choices concerning media. Usually my students have a free choice of media based on their interests.
These projects are designed to give advanced students exposure to important ideas and artists in contemporary art and experience with a range of media, some of which hopefully will be new to them. The projects are adaptable to whatever curriculum you run. I have used them with my Year 1 IB students, usually in the first semester to help them meet the required breadth of media the program requires.
It is also highly recommended that students are familiar with the strategies for analyzing and writing about art that are put forth in the mini-lesson Discovering More About Art which can be downloaded from the Art-o-matic page.
For sixteen of his over thirty years in education, Brian Reverman taught high school and middle school art at the International School of Beijing, The American School of Bombay, and the Casablanca American School. He is currently the Artist-in-Residence at HKUGA College in Hong Kong.
© Brian Reverman 2019