Art Education Beyond the Classroom - by A Wexler (Hardcover)

About the Book

"The subjects of this book belong to a population that is marginalized and isolated. They are children and adults with disabilities--artists who make art in special classrooms, prisons, rural back roads, backwaters, and institutions. By focusing on this population, editor and key author Alice Wexler provides a common thread that unites traditionally separate fields of art criticism, art education, and art therapy. With firsthand experience in the field, each contributor to this volume offers critical research which challenges the non-transferable divide between us and them, encouraging art teachers, therapists, critics, and general readers alike to uncover their biases regarding the nature of art and education. "--

Book Synopsis

By focusing on children and adults with disabilities, each contributor offers critical research which challenges the non-transferable divide between us and them, encouraging art teachers, therapists, critics, and general readers alike to uncover their biases regarding the nature of art and education.

Review Quotes

"Challenging notions about artists and artistic practices on the borders of culture, this book engages in broad and inclusive understandings of art. These inclusive views of art and education are needed to engender a truly participatory and democratic society." - Flavia Bastos, associate professor and Interim Director, School of Art, College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning, University of Cincinnati

"During my 30 years of discovering, exhibiting the work of 'outsider' artists, as well as co-authoring several books on this amorphous and indefinable world of wonder, I have had the enormous privilege to witness creativity explode from the spirits of so many who might have otherwise been dismissed by a society that so denies and avoids the different. The struggle to understand and deeply appreciate these variations in the realms of the brain, mind, and creative wellsprings of these outsiders is elegantly and personally addressed in Wexler's immensely important compilation of inquiry and experience from some of the brightest thinkers and students of the field." - Roger Ricco, artist

About the Author

ALICE J. WEXLER Associate Professor and a program director of Art Education at the School of Fine and Performing Arts, SUNY New Paltz, USA.