Art, creation and pedagogical work

Dra. Susana Rangel Vieira da Cunha

Google Translation

Creativity has an owner?

A few years ago, visiting a country where most of the population lived with few
economic resources, I was impressed with the solutions that mechanical created for
their cars to circulate in the streets. In addition to the functional range of solutions,
also perceived aesthetic concerns. That is, the people who put the car in motion with
few material resources, as well as manufacture, adapt, retrain other parts, also had
beautification purposes. Most of the time, do not classify this type of work as creative
as common sense taught that creativity is confined to the field of Arts and so do not
recognize that the work done in any field of knowledge and in different situations,
from biotechnology to Yanomami building canoes, is also guided by creative thinking,
sometimes aesthetic. Thus, creative thinking is not exclusive to artists, is a human skill
that sets us apart from other species and as taught, since the 70's, visual artist Fayga
Ostrower: "We consider creativity potential inherent in men [and women]. (...) The
create can only be seen in a global sense, as an act integrated in a human life. In fact,
create and live interconnected "(Ostrower, 1987, p.5).
If we attribute creativity only to the field of art, as would call the process that led to
the discovery of the plane? Teflon? contact lenses? computer? processes of all the
inventors are creatives, its products have revolutionized the world as much as the
Giotto products, da Vinci, Cezanne, Picasso, Duchamp, among many others who broke
with current models of the art of his time. Therefore, urge you to reflect: creativity is a
trait that is expressed only in artists and art? What differentiates the creative thinking
of artists, physicians, biochemists, cooks? Roughly, it can be said that the creation of
processes in different fields and in our daily lives are triggered by: curiosity about
something, need and persistence to find solutions, tension formed between what is
and what might be - the unknown - daring to break with the established and
abandonment of certainties. These "ingredients" lead creators to seek a means - the
vehicle - to realize their intentions, understand and dialogue with the materiality and
finally reconfigure in other ways. In the art field, such reconfigurations are called
"works" and does not aim at a "utility" instrumental, but "inaugurate meanings,
perceptual modes, ways and original arrangements of objects" (Canclini, 1981, p.36),
launch questions, cause other perspectives on the world. Outside the field of art, we
can say that are productions, in most cases, functional devices that are designed to
meet the needs of all orders, the sciences, the intellectual thinking and everyday life,
technologies. Leonardo Da Vinci (1452 -1519) is an example of a creator of works and
artifacts, however, is celebrated more artistic production than the numerous and
advanced inventions created by him. It is noted that the division between artistic
productions and all other productions was engendered in a given historical period, in
the late Middle Ages, early Renaissance, by a particular social group, in order to
establish a hierarchy and assign a symbolic power producers (artists), their products
(works) and their sponsors (church and royalty). The association between processes of
creation, creativity and art is an outdated historical-cultural design that should be
deconstructed in school contexts. According to the thinker Domenico De Masi (2000),
creativity would be the most valuable intellectual activity in our century, in this
perspective, the school institution should rethink all curriculum components
emphasizing the processes of creation.

Art, creativity and new

When we think of art as soon associate with creativity to the new, as if they were
synonyms. However, these concepts do not always walked side by side, they were
being modified according to prevailing conceptions of art and socio-cultural contexts.
Tatarkiewics (2002) devotes a great deal of discussion about the concept of creativity
in art was being transformed over the different periods, from that author, these
relationships will be woven. According to the author, in ancient Greece, the classic
artists did not create, but imitated the natural forms and followed laws and regulations
of the constitution of forms. The freedom of the artist was restricted proportions and
canons established by Policleto (460-420 BC). The words create, creative, creativity
were not used for art, but the word and make do. In the Christian period, creating
word was restricted to the divine creation, only God had this ability and art should
imitate nature, the artist reproduces the beauty archetypes. In the Middle Ages the
great value of art was the ability to reproduce nature. In the Renaissance is used the
word invented to refer to the process of elaboration of the works and for the first time
artists have license to create a new world and not a copy. It is also in this period that
come the figure of the artist as an individual marking its production with its name.
Even though Renaissance artists followed composition of patterns, colors, light and
shadow, perspective, themes, they differed from each other in the use of visual
language, materials and narratives, ie, there was a search for differentiated solutions,
creative, where each artist had his own aesthetic markers. Only in the nineteenth
century the term creative and creativity is incorporated the language of art and
became the exclusive property of art and synonymous with artist. And in the twentieth
century "the word creator began to apply to all human culture, we started talking on
the creativity of science, policy and technology." (Tatarkiewicz, 2002 p. 286).
Conceptions of Art Impressionism, late nineteenth century and artistic Vanguards of
the early twentieth century break with past traditions of and inaugurated the idea of
the "new", realized in singular aesthetic and compositional arrangements, the
diversification of the use of materials, in view, among other innovations. However,
even with all the breaks with the legacy of the past, the design of creation, creativity
and new was still linked to the design of the past, the artist as a different creator and
his productions as the fruit of "inspiration" and not a result of hard work with the
material issues, compositional studies and colorísticos, clashes, copy, imitation, to
finally reach his works "new".
It is understood that art history builds a history of "news", as if the artists were always
restating in other ways their production and thus, in most cases, is linked to art to the
new, that never seen before in the art. However, as the concepts of art and creativity
have been transformed, the concept of new, originality, suffering a concussion when
Marcel Duchamp presents a utilitarian object, a urinal as a work of art "The Source"
(1917). Thus, the "new" Duchamp is a reinterpretation of objects, a common object is
transformed into work of art.
In addition to transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary, the new is no longer
centered on the work itself, but in thoughts that may trigger the spectators. The
"newness" of contemporary art is to place the subjects that were passive spectators in
creative subjects, active, participating and expand his thoughts from the works. Nadin
Ospina, Cuenca, Lia Menna Barreto, Nelson Leiner, Enrique Chagoya, Gottfried
Helnwein, Regina Silveira, Sandro Ka, Joana Vasconcelos, Léon Ferrari, among many
other artists used in their cultural artefacts works of popular culture icons, images and
compositions canonic art, prints, political, social, cultural events, war, social, racial
conflict, religious and motto to put the certainties of those who see them suspended.
Artists today are generous and democratic in the sense that extends to different
audiences the chance to be creative.

Contemporary Art, creativity and art education

Currently, the challenges and dilemmas presented to us art teachers are immense,
given the rapid socio-cultural changes that we live in the last decades and the children
and youth cultural practices generated in mediations with endless productions and
cultural artifacts. It is observed that what is socially instituted as Art is still a far cry for
most students / as and teachers, and television productions, filmic, advertising, web,
among other cultural productions, actively participate in the life of students / as, their
imaginary, mobilizing them, grouping them into tribes, creating cultural practices,
styles and ways of being. From very early on children living with television, virtual and
printed images with the act of collecting them, produce them, manipulate them, edit
them and narrate their experiences through them. Today it is common access to the
visual world, but increasingly it is noted a decrease in the ability of children and young
people reframe the singular mode images, or creative. It is understood that the school
could be one of the places where the creative process should be triggered critical,
playful and poetic way. With regard to the teaching of art, there is a fine of
Contemporary Art presence and a little discussion about the ways artists think, create
and make art today.
The themes and materials of the art of our time are very close to the experiences of
children and young people, so it is postulated that the School Paute work of art
combining the universes, knowledge, knowledge of students to the thought of
Contemporary Art with a view often art exhibits, criticizes, ridicules, reinforces socio-
cultural practices experienced by students. Where is the point of intersection between
the experiences of the students and the teaching of art? Do the collections of Nelson
Leiner, video installations of Diana Domingues , the skies of Sandra Cinto not make
possible links with the imaginary of our students?
Furthermore, it is noted in the school context, a thought about art, then creativity,
founded on ideas of other times and not the art of the last 100 years. We understand
and we look at art as if our eyes were prior to the twentieth century. For Cauquelin
(2005, p.18) "(...) the art of the past prevents us from grasping the art of our time." So
often there is a past art nostalgia in school environments, keeping a watchful eye and
understandable to what is produced today. However, our the students, children and
young people, are videns who consume and interact with products and images that are
often the raw material of Contemporary Art. The provocations of contemporary art
could not suggest pedagogies in tune arts with the experiences of children and young
people? The ways in which contemporary artists think and prepare their work, their
process could be used as references to think the art of teaching in contemporary
times, in view of the questions that they have been doing on issues that cross our daily
lives. So it is urgent to reflect on what is creativity today in the art world for so
elaborate pedagogical work. It is believed that art's role in education is to provoke
questions and trigger another education look, an education that breaks with the
established, with the rules and conventions of the world itself. An education in art that
makes people keep seeking and giving poetic meaning to life.

References:
OSTROWER, Fayga. Criatividade e Processos de Criação. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1987, 19ª.
Edição
CANCLINI, Nestor Garcia. Teoria e Prática na América Latina: A Socialização da Arte. São
Paulo: Editora Cultrix,1981.
DE MASI, Domenico. O Ócio Criativo: entrevista a Maria Serena Palieri. Tradução de Lea
Manzi. Rio de Janeiro: Sextante, 2000.
TATARKIEWICZ, Wladislaw. Historia de seis ideas. Arte, belleza, forma, creatividad,
mimesis, experiencia estetica. Madrid: Editorial Tecnos, 2002.
CAUQUELIN, Anna. Arte contemporânea: uma introdução. São Paulo: Ed. Martins, 1ª
Edição, 2005.