Abstract :
In the recent decades art education has tried to
move away from the trends based on practical
skills and techniques towards a greater stress on
interpreting and understanding visual culture,
created by the mass media. This approach
implies a revision of the field of study and a redefinition
of goals, replacing the study of art with a
study of ‘visual culture’, a concept that better
describes the daily environment of students and
which reorientates art education towards social
and cultural awareness. In this article, starting
from Dewey’s conception of art as experience, a
theoretical framework is offered based on three
ideas. Firstly, the subject of art education involves
aesthetic experience, which includes both ‘high’
art and popular culture. Secondly, it is necessary
to reconstruct the balance between understanding
and production in art education, in order
to consider art products as narratives, stories or
comments about life experiences. Thirdly, to
review the educational function of art education
in order to determinate its value for social reconstruction
and for which Rorty calls ‘self-creation’.
