What is good art?

5D 2008 listening to the history behind one of my favourite paintings, 'Shearing the Rams' by Tom Roberts

I never used to have any particular interest in art until I started teaching. In my first year of teaching, my Year 4 colleague informed me that we would be teaching a semester long unit on the history of art. My naive mind thought 'how the hell am I going to keep 9 year olds interested in art for 20 weeks?!' Somehow I managed it and also managed to find that I really loved it and now I love looking at artworks and talking to children about their interpretations and thoughts on different art styles. Since then, I have taught a couple of units on art appreciation and I love the thinking that can be incorporated into the learning - explanation of thoughts, interpretation and creative always come above learning a bunch of dates and facts.

Salvador Dali exhibition at the NGV

I've been lucky enough to go to some great exhibitions with school excursions and generally rely on these to see the big shows. However, I decided to visit the Art Gallery of South Australia whilst in Adelaide and yesterday, Mum and I hopped on a train and visited the Salvador Dali exhibition followed by that of John Brack.

The Art Gallery of South Australia

I've never known a lot about Salvador Dali, so we first went to an introductory talk before going through the exhibition. Armed with interesting information about the artist and his life, we were able to view the art with more understanding than had we headed directly to the exhibition. What a strange individual Mr Dali was! The number of artworks on display was huge, and included paintings, sketches, sculptures, jewellery, costume designs, film and photography, with each piece very strange and definitely unique. The detail in each painting was astonishing and definitely my favourite part to look at in each painting. Now, I just need Mum to finish her psychology degree so she can interpret Dali's subconscious, there is some seriously weird stuff in his work.

A very strange individual!

My favourite painting by Dali - I love the detail and the optical illusions in the painting

The John Brack exhibit provided a totally different perspective on art. Again, I haven't known a lot about Brack's art, the main piece I knew was 'Collins Street, 5pm', an artwork that I have taken many students to view at the Ian Potter Centre. Unlike Dali's work, it was easier to see the differences in Brack's art during different stages of his career. After a brief look, my favourite pieces are the neon ballroom dancers and the paintings of the pencils. We only had half an hour to view the exhibition, so I plan to head back again this week, to listen to the audio tour and learn a little more about his work. I'm sure I will have more of an opinion once I've been to the exhibition for a second time!

'Pros and cons'

My immersion in art over the past week has raised a very 'Ithakan' question - 'What makes good art?' I began considering this at the gallery in Adelaide, where I found myself looking at a huge black canvas with a border of red. Now, I know that you can look at the piece and analyse it, predicting the artist's intention and make your own interpretations, but how does the gallery decide that this particular piece is worthy of inclusion in the gallery? To me, I could have painted the piece (and I don't have an artistic bone in my body) but of course, it wouldn't be included. Is it simply due to the name of the artist? And with Dali's work, how did he become so popular when his work is so bizarre and was so different to many artists of the time? How do curators make the decision? Anyway, there is my artistic rant for the day!

Collins Street, 5pm - I love this painting!