Abst~act E~p~essi~~is~ a~d Art. Ed."U-cati~n.= F~r~alis~ an.d. Self-E~pressi~n. as C"U-rric~l~ Id.e~logy Kerry Freedman In the 1940's and 1950's, forma li sm and self-expression theories about abstract expressionism were incorporated into art education. However, as these products of the art community became a part of cu rdculum, the social and po l itica l foundations of the art and the theories were ignored. A school art style was emphasized that contai ned only selected e l ements of Greenberg's f orma l ist analysis of abstract expressionism. Curriculum also contained a reduction of Rosenberg 's theory of expressive process to some pseudo- expres­ sive technical characteristics. While the argument is not made that there was a studied and analytical reinterpretation of these critics' theories in school, the theories represented and became part of a general cl im ate of opinion, which helped to shape people's (including teachers') understanding of modern art. Th e transformation of abstract. expressionism in art education was not arbitrary. It supported and legitimated post-i-Jorld \·Jar II institu­ tional priorities of socialization and professional training. The theories which frame curricu­ been shaped by institutional impera­ lum often approach issues of educa­ tives . tion from "lith;n . For examp l e , This paper concerns the cultura l arti stic development is viewed in and po li t i cal dynamics of the terms of physical and psychological abstract expressionist art community traits of children or strategies of and the conceptions of the arti stic teaching which are believed to movement represented in education. promote ch i 1 dren' s growth. A Although a ll of the complex proces­ different form of analysis is to ses which have shaped art education examine how interna l definitions of during t his period cannot be dealt school art are influenced by exteri ­ with in a single paper, it will be or, social relations. An analysis argued t hat the formal i st and which focuses upon exterior influen­ express ive concerns that developed ces includes not only a discernment around abstract expressi ani sm of causes but a reconstructi on of a infl uenced, but were transformed in climate of opinion in order to school. Th e vital social values and understand what was poss ible for intellectual interests which sustain curriculum. the art community were largely The exterior relations that ignored in curriculum. What became shape curriculum include the priori­ po ssi b1 e for curri cul um was deter­ ties of public schooling and the mined by the social purposes and dynamics of the art community. arrangements of schooling. Schooling is shaped by institutional ThE> purposes such as the upbringing, Establishrn~n.t socialization and labor training of of Abstra.ct children. Art involves a different E~pr~ss.i..~r:Lisrn set of soci a 1 arrangements. By Abstract expressionism is distinguishing between the dynamics considered America's first avant­ of the art community and those of garde art movement and the first schoo 1 i ng, we may better understand international style to have origin­ the ways in which school art has ated in the United States. 17 However, the movement ':Ias not European understand i ng of sci ence, concerned merely with a set of the arts and 1 i terature. The stylisti c techniques or individual Europeans brought wi th them ideas acts of self- expression; the proces­ associated with the moral and social ses and products of abstract expres­ commitments of socialism and commun ­ sionism represented a community of ism . discourse concerned wi th soci a 1 r.lany or those who initiated a l ienation and political reform. abstract expressionism were employed Abstract expressionism emerged by the Federal Art Project. The at a time of radical cultural project gave artists an opportunity change. DUrl ng the 1 ate 1930 ' sand to work; but there were cultural 1940's, a desire for a culture agendas as we 11 . I t supported independent from European tradition social realism as a representation emerged I"li th i n i nte 11 ectua 1 and of national culture. The styl e was artistic circles . A nationalism thought particularly appropriate developed I-Ihich focused upon cultu­ because it was considered democratic ral leadership and was confirmed by and easily understood and appreciat­ a growing faith in Am e rican enter­ ed by the general pub 1 i c. prlse. These cross- currents provid­ Some Federal Art Project artists ed a source of debate and insplra­ attended Hans Hofmann's influent i al tion in the art community. Eighth Street school. Hofmann, a Sc:>c= .ial German refugee, has a perspecti ve FC:>1...l.rl.Cia.t .:i... c:>:n..s c:>£ that was both a conceptual and t h e A:rt perceptual contrast to European CC>ITUT\-u.:n..:i.. t y cubism and a vital urban alternative A number of conditions made the to rural social realism . He emp ha­ focus upon national culture possible sized Matisse's imagery and color at including changes in the interna­ a time when most of the art communi- tional political and economic scene. ty was i nfl uenced by Pi casso's The development of an influential analytic abstraction. ~ ofmann art community in New York was explored the idea that art could enhanced by its physical distance emerge completely from ... lithir an from the war . The destruction of artist . \.Jorld l,·Jar II made it difficult for By the middle 1940's t hese the continued development of Euro­ various groups came together for pean artistic traditions, while social interaction and debate. American cultural activity and study Artists who had been meeting at the were sustained . Waldorf Cafeteria merged with the However, the American art American Abstract Artists to form communi ty had strong European roots the Eighth Street Painter's Club. A through tl'IO groups of artists and vital aspect of this coalition was intellectuals . One of the groups that it was not only artists within was made up of fi rst and second their own coterie; the Club promoted generation immigrants who sought a joining of academics and intel l ec­ assimilation and social mobility tuals with the art community. through cultural (academic and Lectures and discussions were held artistic) knowledge. A second concerning political and philosophi­ influential group was the ref ugees . cal issues involving painters, Many of Europe ' s greatest artists writers, composers and people and intellectuals came to the United associated with literary magazines, States to escape the war. Although museums, and universities. some of the refugees 1 ater returned These interactions enabled New to Europe, they i nfl uenced Amer; can York pa inters to become acqua i nted cultural discourse through their with European surrealism. There was 18 also a growing familiarity with the than symbolic, and is generated symbolic abstraction of artists such through crises of urban technol ogi­ · as Klee , Miro and particularly cal life . The re is a sense of Kandi nsky through reproduct ions and alienation of human beings in exhibited examples of thei r work. general and a marginality of artists The artists adopted the surrealist in particular. practice of automatism as an expres­ The view of science al so in­ sion of the unconscious. However, cludes a belief in progress based on unli ke the surrealists, the American psycho l ogy. It is assumed that a painters used the graphic represen­ science of the human mind wi ll solve tation of chance and unconscious social problems. When abstract gesture to explore the possibilities expressionism emerged, Freudian and of imagery. Jungian ideas framed many explorato­ Sc>cia..l ry responses to modern existence. Vis..ic>Tl.s c>::E the Artists rejected mechanistic views Art CC>rnrrl"U.rl..ity of man and society and glorified From these social relations and both the idiosyncratic experience artistic experimentation emerged the and human union through a common ideas and images which developed mythical unconscious. into abstract expressionism. At A third current In the art least three social and political community I-/as an American socialist currents coalesced to give direction vision which became prominent in the to the art movement, One was a 1930's . During the Depression, many be 1 i ef in Amed can democracy as the artists and intellectuals identified guardian of individual rights and with socialist reforms and Marxist autonomy, a belief particularly theory. cherished by the refugees and In the 1930's. a debate concern­ immigrants who had come from count­ i ng Marxism and modernism received a ries where these values were denied. forum in the literary journals where Hofmann and others believed that abstract express ion; sm was fi rst artists represented the independence discussed. There was a problematic and creative freedom which democracy quality of the alliance between promised and which had been sought Ma rx ism and modernism . Some who in their exile from Europ e (e.g . supported Marxi sm sought to combat Seitz, 1983). alienation with the pastoral values A second current was a concern and worker contro 11 ed 1abor repre­ with modernism and the relation of sented in Regional i sm which contras­ science to society. Modernism is an ted with abstract art \..,hich could intellectual, as well as artistic, not be understood by common peapl e. movement . In contrast to nineteenth But Marxism also rep~esented an century certitude, modernism in­ international social consciousness volves a consciousness in which which challenged the wartime situa­ conventions and trad itions are tion in Europe and the isolationism thought tenuous and existence is in mainstream intellectual 1 ife.