Find the Poles in 'Blue Poles'

Abstract

Introduction:  This paper describes a program developed at the National Gallery ofAustralia, in which the discussion of art with students is presented quite differently from the traditional gallery teaching model. Rather than telling students about the context of art works, or setting them such tasks as finding the “blue poles”, the model is taken from the Philosophy for Children community of inquiry. We seek to show teachers how apparently “difficult” art naturally gives rise to questions about reality, reference, beauty and the importance of art works. We illustrate the process with works of Anselm Kiefer, Jim Dine and Andy Warhol.