Art + Text

WHAT’S THE BIG IDEA?

Twenty-first-century students live in a world awash with visual stimulation—particularly text—from the “M” of the “Golden Arches” that any two-year-old can spot to miles of billboards that line city streets and highways. Clothes, shoes, hats, and sports equipment all bear lively alphabetic imprints. But the union of text and art is not new. For nearly a century, artists have been experimenting with the idea of text as imagery. As early as 1912, artists were using words in their paintings to reflect everyday life and culture. By the end of the 1960s, many artists were using words either primarily or exclusively to create images. Here are some of the reasons why they used text:

FOR THE TEACHER

by suggesting alternative meanings.

of communication.

visual images.

In addition, many artists began to give greater emphasis to their thoughts and ideas than to actual images they produced, and this led some to consider any thought or activity as a potential work of art. This was known as conceptual art, which the artist Joseph Kosuth defined in this way: “Conceptual art, simply put, had as its basic tenet an understanding that artists work with meaning, not with shapes, colors, or materials.”

GETTING STARTED

The activities in this section allow students to explore the idea that the design of a text conveys meaning along with the text’s intrinsic content, and help you to assess their prior knowledge about text as art.

IMAGES160 Roy Lichtenstein, Whaam, 1963146 Faith Ringgold, Tar Beach, 1988161 Barbara Kruger, It’s a small world but not if you

have to clean it, 1990162 Gillian Wearing, from Signs that Say What You Want

Them To Say and Not Signs that Say What Someone Else Wants You To Say, 1992–93

163 Robert Smithson, Heap of Language, 1966164 Ed Ruscha, Honk, 1961–62165 Felix Gonzales-Torres, Unititled (Portrait of

Jennifer Flay), 1992166 Lawrence Weiner, A square removal from a rug

in use, 1969167 Jenny Holzer, When there is no safe place to sleep

you’re tired from walking all day and exhausted from the night because it’s twice as dangerous then, from the Survival series, 1983

168 On Kawara, I Got Up At, 1974

WHAT YOU’LL NEEDmagazinesprinted movie ads from a variety of film genresclothing with logos or text

FOR THE TEACHER

BIG QUESTIONSWhy would an artist choose to paint or write words on a canvas rather than paint a picture?

What happens when an artist pairs a picture with a word or phrase? How does the meaning change?

How does the way a word is written—its color, shape, font, and size—influence its meaning?

STUDENTS WILLInvestigate contemporary art that involves a relationship be-tween text, language, and visual images.

Discuss how artists use words to create pictures in our minds.

Explore how artists use words to create stories, make sculp-ture, document performance, and create portraits.

ART VOCABULARYfont/typefaceconceptual artimagemail artportraitquilttext

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Art + Text

Thanks to advertising, our environment is filled with words paired with pictures or words working as pictures. Begin your discus-sion by helping students focus on the role of text in their daily lives and how the color, font, or typeface and size affect words’ meanings.

ACTIVITYAnalyzing commercial text Bring in a variety of advertisements for movies from the newspaper (e.g., one from a horror film, comedy, romance, children’s film, etc.). Ask students to compare the fonts used for each movie ad.

What can you tell about the movie from just looking at the font?

What style of lettering is used for comedies, dramas, and horror movies?

Does the “look” of the word go with the image?

What do you see that gives you that impression?

ACTIVITYWearing words Have students with text on their T-shirts or clothing logos display them to the class.

What meaning do you think the designer is trying to convey with this text?

Does the “look” of the word go with the image? Why?

LOOKING AT ART

The following section provides images and inquiry questions to stimulate a discussion about words as art. The text is divided by headings that indicate themes for exploration and provide natural break points in the lesson.

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WORDS AND IMAGESWhat’s happening in this picture?

Words can add sound to visual images. Ask students to read the sound-effect word in the way they see it expressed in the picture, experimenting with volume, tone, and inflection.

What did you see that made you say the word that way?

What other sound-effect words do you know?List ideas on the board.

What picture comes into your mind when you hear each of those words?

Where do you think the artist may have gotten the idea for this picture?

What do you think might have happened in the frame before this?

What might happen in the next frame?

Art + Text

SHOW

160 Roy Lichtenstein, Whaam, 1963

This picture is based on a memory.

What can you discover about the artist’s memory from looking at the picture?

What details does the text add?

What parts of the picture do you notice now, because of the text?

This work by Faith Ringgold combines painting, quilted fabric, and storytelling. She uses the story quilt—a traditional American craft associated with women’s communal work that also has roots in African culture.

What message do you think Ringgold might be trying to communicate?

How do the words help you understand the meaning of the quilt?

SHOW

146 Faith Ringgold, Tar Beach, 1988

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SHOW

162 Gillian Wearing, Signs that Say What You Want Them To Say and Not Signs that Say What Someone Else Wants You To Say, ‘I’m desperate,’ 1992–93

What’s going on in this picture?

Artist Barbara Kruger’s first job was as a designer for a magazine.

What similarities do you see between this work of art and magazine design?

Kruger found this photograph and combined it with her own words.

If you took away the words, how might you describe the picture?

How does the picture relate to the words?

What ideas do you think Kruger might be suggesting by pairing this picture with these words?

What’s going on here?

This picture is from an artwork made of many photographs called Signs that Say What You Want Them To Say and Not Signs that Say What Some-one Else Wants You To Say. Photographer Gillian Wearing selected random people and asked them to write their thoughts on a piece of paper.

Have you seen people holding signs in public? How do you react?

What does it mean to be desperate? Does this man look desperate? Why or why not?What can you tell me about this man by just looking at his appearance? How does the sign change your first impression? If you were photographed with a sign, what would your sign say?

Wearing wants to remind us that we make assumptions about people without really knowing them. “A great deal of my work is about questioning handed-down truths.”

In what other situations do we make assumptions before we have time to investigate?

SHOW

161 Barbara Kruger, It’s a small world but not if you have to clean it, 1990

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WORDS AS IMAGESSome artists use words alone as the imagery and subject matter of their artwork.

What do you see here?

What do these words have in common?

The title of this drawing is Heap of Language.

How does the image relate to the title?

Would you call this a picture or a kind of poem? Why?

Have students read this word aloud, experiment-ing with volume, tone, and inflection.

What pictures come into your mind when you hear that word?

The artist Ed Ruscha says his work is like “visual noise.” What do you think he means by that?

Discuss the idea that usually, when making a painting, the artist makes the picture or image and we supply the words to talk about what we see. In Ruscha’s work, he gives us words and we envision a variety of pictures or sounds in our head, depending on what the words mean to us.

Art + Text

164 Ed Ruscha, Honk, 1961–62

SHOWSHOW

163 Robert Smithson, Heap of Language, 1966

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Felix Gonzalez-Torres once said that we usually transfer a photo graphic portrait into language by saying things like:

“She looks cross and mean.” In his own portrait pieces he reverses this: He makes a portrait with words instead.

In the words of the artist “I start a portrait by asking the person to give me a list of important events in his or her life…Then I add some relevant historical events that…have probably altered the course of…those…private or personal events. These portraits are always changing, and whoever owns them can alter, add, or take out information.”

Such a portrait can act like a mirror, whereas a photograph always reflects a thing from the past.

Gonzalez-Torres made this portrait of artistic director and former gallery owner Jennifer Flay by using dates and events related to her life. Flay was originally from New Zealand, but later became a French citizen. This portrait was made in 1992, but Flay can add new text to update her portrait. Use any search engine (such as Google) to locate a photograph of Flay to compare the two types of portraits.

SHOW

165 Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Untitled (Portrait of Jennifer Flay), 1992

What can a “word portrait” tell us that a photograph cannot?

What does a photo or painted portrait convey that a “word portrait” cannot?

What phrases would we use to create a “word portrait” of our class? Of our school?

Ask students to explain their suggestions.

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WORDS DESCRIBING IMAGESSome artists use text alone to communicate their ideas and images.

Have a student read the text and ask students to imagine what this artwork might look like. Have them describe the rug they see when they visualize this work in terms of size, color, design, and texture.

How large is the square?

How might it be removed from the rug?

This artwork is by Lawrence Weiner, who uses only words to describe his idea for a sculpture. He gives viewers a description of what he’s think-ing, and each imagines how the art would look. Weiner got this idea when he made a very simple sculpture with twine and sticks. When a student cut down the twine to walk on the grass, Weiner realized that his sculpture could be even simpler if he skipped making the art and just gave viewers a description of the work.

Weiner has said that the work can be made by the artist or the “receiver of the work.” Or it can remain unmade, existing as a written description.

What do you think he means by “the receiver of the work?” (Anyone who views the work can be the receiver. You don’t have to own the work to reproduce it.)

What would you choose to do—put the words on the wall or actually cut a square in your rug? Why?

Art + Text

166 Lawrence Weiner, A square removal from a rug in use, 1969

SHOW

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Let students know this is a photograph of a sticker that has been stuck on a trashcan lid. The sticker was created by artist Jenny Holzer.

What do you think the artist is writing about here?

How do you feel when you see homeless people on the street?

What might be the significance of putting this sticker on a trashcan?

Where else could this sticker be placed? Why?

What might Holzer be trying to get us to do?

What things are people in your community doing to solve the problem of homelessness?

Why do you think Holzer chose to present her artwork in public instead of in an art gallery or museum?

Jenny Holzer is an abstract painter who decided to paint subjects that are familiar to everyone. She gets her ideas from reading and current events. At first, she wrote informative phrases on paintings. Then she began to work on public

art projects, because location is very important in her work. Her phrases have appeared on T-shirts, electronic signs, posters, stickers, movie marquees, public benches, TV, and the Internet.

Have students look at one more piece of art that uses text as a means of communication.

Mail art is art that uses the postal system as part of its process. In the I Got Up At series, On Kawara explores the concept of time and marking days. Almost every day, Kawara sent a postcard to his friend, artist John Baldessari, with a stamp that told him what time he woke up.

How do you keep a record of days? (Answers could include in a diary or journal, on a calendar, or in an assignment book.)

Do you consider this to be art? If so, what makes it art?

If not, what could be added or changed for it to become art?

Why do you think some artists choose to express themselves through the mail?

SHOW

167 Jenny Holzer, When there is no safe place to sleep you’re tired from walking all day and exhausted from the night because it’s twice as dangerous then, from the Survival series, 1983

SHOW

168 On Kawara, I Got Up At, 1974

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MAKINGCreate word portraits Words evoke powerful pictures. Have students manipulate computer fonts to create word portraits of their classmates. Pair students and have them interview one an-other about important events, dates, and signifi-cant others in their partners’ lives.

Instruct them to ask:

What has been the most important event in your life so far?

Who are the people closest to you?

Are there any dates that have special meaning for you?

Using a computer, have students choose the typeface, size, and colors that best match their impression of their interviewee. Have students arrange the words on the page to best represent their subject.

WHAT YOU’LL NEEDcomputer access

TAKING A STEP BEYOND

The following activities relate to the discussion about words as art, and give students an opportunity to extend and deepen their understanding through art making, writing, and research.

FOR THE TEACHER

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Art + Text

Create a comic Comic books and graphic novels are combinations of words and pictures that tell a story. Have students look at a variety of comic books or visit comic book writing web sites, which can be located at moca.org/ education/teachers/curric/themes/artandtext/making. Discuss some of the common narrative characteristics: What kinds of characters do graphic novelists invent? What are typical comic genres or storylines? Also, discuss the various formats that comic illustrations utilize: square, rectangle, multiple-panel, round, varied, etc.

Here are some basic steps for making a comic strip:

1. Have students brainstorm plot characters and setting ideas. Have them write out a basic outline of what will happen in their story.

2. Have students sketch a rough draft with pen-cil. Making a rough sketch will help students figure out how many panels they will need. Encourage them to experiment with different frame shapes using traceable objects.

3. Have students draw their final version using pencil lightly enough so they can erase the lines later.

4. Once everything is lightly sketched out, have students go back and color in with markers or colored pencils. Tip: for consistency, color in recurrent characters or objects one at a time. For example, if your villain is always wearing a blue hat, color in all the blue hats at once.

5. Next, students should use a black pen to outline the panels and emphasize their text.

6. Last, erase the pencil marks.

7. Publish!

WHAT YOU’LL NEEDpencilserasersvariety of objects to trace for cell shapes, i.e. yogurt lids, Post-it pads, etc.

sketch paperpaper for final draftsmarkers or colored pencilsblack felt tip pens for outlining

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FOR THE TEACHER

Combine image and text Students have seen how artists use words to create unexpected, new ways of reading pictures and photographs. Have students create collages that juxtapose text with images to make new meanings.

1. Instruct students to bring in a variety of pho-tographs from home or from magazines. Bring in your own images for discussion purposes.

2. Lead a class discussion about the meaning or message your image might convey.

3. As a class, brainstorm a list of common say-ings or clichés that relate to your picture.

4. Ask students to suggest new and unexpected meanings or completely different readings of your picture based on words they choose.

5. Next, have students complete the same exer-cise with their own images and choose one of their words or phrases to give their picture an unexpected new reading.

6. Students should then incorporate the text in the image in some way. Text can be cut out of a magazine, stenciled in, written with marker, cut from paper or printed from a computer.

7. When complete, students could write a brief reflection paragraph describing the new meaning or interpretation of their image

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

magazinesphotos from homeconstruction paperscissorsglue/tapeoptional: stencils, computer and printer access

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Art + Text

WRITING

Narrate it Have students write their own story about what is happening in the picture Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold (image 146), then read her book of the same title.

GOING FURTHERVisit moca.org/education/teachers/curric/themes/artandtext/further to find artist Faith Ringgold’s own website. Click on “Story Time” where the artist presents you with a story that she invites you “to rewrite, illustrate, comment on, question, and enjoy.”

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