Art as an Area of Knowledge - the exhibition

What is Art?
Mr Starr, in his presentation to 12th grade Theory of Knowledge (ToK) students, uses these quotations to stimulate thought on the matter:

• “Art is what you can get away with.” Andy Warhol
• “Life imitates art more than art imitates life.” Oscar Wilde
• “Art is meant to disturb, science reassures.” Georges Braque

So as to have a real understanding of what Art is, all of our ToK students produce a piece of art in the final part of the course. The task is to produce, individually, a work of art that conveys a central idea which is assigned to their ToK group. They create a group exhibition and write a reflection on the nature of the relationship between Art and Knowledge.
The four issues for this year were:

• (NES) "We have finally reached a state of gender equality in the modern world". To what extent is this claim true?
• (EQJ) "Global Warming is caused by human activity". To what extent is this claim true?
• (JGH) "Democracy is the best form of government". To what extent is this claim true?
• (MSS) "People starve because there is not enough food to go around". To what extent is this claim true?

There were outstanding pieces of art produced and all students got to understand the process of producing art as well as investigating a topical ToK issue. Here are photographs of the exhibitions that were held in the Learning Resources Centre from the 3rd of March 2011: