| Kerry Hart: The danger of interdisciplinary arts education
Wouldn't it be great if we could read a couple of books on brain surgery and be ready to perform an operation? In arts education, that is the type of miraculous feat we often expect from our teachers. Every academic discipline requires a unique intellectual function — from quantitative reasoning to philosophical inquiry. The arts are no different. Dance requires a physical-kinesthetic brain function; music requires an auditory function; visual art requires a visual-spacial brain function; and drama incorporates a combination of several, including the verbal-linguistic function that is important to the literary arts. The college and university curriculum in each arts discipline is rigorous and, indeed, it takes a lifetime to acquire mastery in one subject area. Yet when it comes to teaching students who do not have a background in any of the arts, we create interdisciplinary arts courses that provide a superficial overview — usually from a historical perspective.
Dallas Seitz: Hunted - the cannibalism of colonial collectorexia
Pump House Gallery is pleased to present Dallas Seitz's first solo show in a UK public gallery, which will include a number of significant new commissioned works. Moving between the mediums of video, sculpture, drawing and photography Seitz investigates the processes of hunting and collecting as a form of colonization and obsession. Though the artist's practice is largely conceptual, much of his work originates from the personal. Often drawing on his own family, upbringing, and memories Seitz moves towards psychological and political terrains - exploring the wider motivations, intentions and implications behind the act of collecting. HUNTED (the cannibalism of colonial collectorexia) features a variety of artworks in a number of different media including films, images, handmade objects and bronze and glass sculptures.
Kara Walker pushes boundaries
New York — It's the day before Kara Walker's solo show opens at her gallery in the heart of Chelsea's art district. Passers-by hoping for a sneak peek stoop to peer beneath the half-lowered shades. Callers inquire whether she will be present at the reception — people who want to meet her, or even, the gallery owner suggests, touch her, as groupies would a rock star. The 37-year-old Walker is not just a star. In today's art world, she is a supernova. And this is the former Atlantan's moment: A triumphant retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art, one of three exhibits in New York alone. She's on magazine covers, in bookstores. Critics suggest comparisons to Goya, the venerated Spanish Old Master. .
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