The Heresy of Didactic Art

Abstract

In the special issue, we are interested in the multiple, and often strategic, connections between art and alternative, radical pedagogies. Of course, the confl uence of art and radical pedagogy is nothing particularly new. The past twenty years, especially, have witnessed a resurgence of all manner of debates and initiatives that attend to the role that contemporary art plays or could play in the development of critical education and pedagogy. Below the radar of academic art history, varying cross sections between artists’ movements and pedagogy have combined Black, feminist, LGBTQ+, or disability activism, as well as workers’ or anarchists’ struggles and organizing to shape art practices that do not shy away from teaching or from a relational epistemology of truth. Especially pertinent in this regard has been the enlistment of art in various forms of militant education as a means to oppose the hegemonic (visual) pedagogy of colonialism. The notion of an “educational turn,” referring both to increased awareness of the educational functions of art and to various cultural institutions beyond art education proper—with its blossoming occurring I N T R O D U C T I O N