The Art of the Assignment

From 1970 through 1986, John Baldessari was teaching at CalArts, where he envisioned and enacted an alternative system and curriculum for higher art education. His teaching philosophy culminated through his Post Studio Art class, where ideas, methods and assignments were decided in collaboration with students. As the name suggests, the modus operandi of the course was to think and conceive of artwork as experiential and common encounters that happen outside of a traditional studio and/or classroom environment.

Baldessari gives the example of putting a local map on the classroom wall, as a stand-in for a dartboard. When a dart was thrown by a student, the entire class would venture out to the place where it landed and find inspiration from within that setting.

On a formalist level, Baldessari championed a methodology of thinking and making, which focuses on the disparate and common relationship between images, objects, places and text. One of his enduring legacies within the field of art education is his creative utilization of assignments, which typically prompt open-ended explorations and insightful thinking within an array of media and themes.

The following is a reproduction (courtesy of SFMoMA) of typewritten course material from Baldessari’s Post Studio Art Class (spelling, grammar and punctuation have been left unedited in the original form that he typed in 1970). These are assignments, which reflect his philosophy for considering not only the relationship between ourselves and physical objects, but how we address circumstances throughout daily life (i.e. politics, economics, faith and play) as artistic endeavors:

Assignment #1

Make up an art game. Structure a set of rules with which to play. A physical game is not necessary; more important are the rules and their structure. Do we in life operate by rules? Does all art? Or art rules, like tenant rules or art violations.

Assignment #2

How can plants be used in art. Problem becomes how can we really get people to look freshly at plants as if they’ve never noticed them before. A few possibilities: 1. Arrange them alphabetically like books on a shelf; 2. Plant them like popsicle trees (as in child art) perpendicular to line of hill; 3. Include object among plants that is camouflaged 4. Color palm tree pink; 5. Photo found growing arrangements; 6. Or a movie on How to Plant a Plant.

Assignment #3

Pay homage to a movie star, rock musician, etc. in form of a pilgrimage visit. Photograph is required of the two of you with a personalized signed greeting by the culture hero. Or it could be to a famous person’s grave. In this case a photo of you at the grave. Person’s name on the gravestone should be visible. No signature necessary.

Assignment #4

Defenestrate objects. Photo them in mid-air.

Assignment #5

One person copies or makes-up random captions. Another person takes photos. Match photos to captions.

Assignment #6

Disguise an object to look like another object.

Assignment #7

Make up list of distractions that often occur to you. Recreate on video tape.

Assignment #8

Document change, decay, metamorphosis, changes occurring in time. Photograph same thing at various times during the day.

Assignment #9

By using movie camera to follow actions and by your observations into cassette recorder, document the movements of someone secretly for an entire day. Or have someone follow you.

Assignment #10

Photograph backs of things, underneaths of things, extreme foreshortenings, uncharacteristic views. Or trace them.

Assignment #11

Describe the visual verbally and the verbal visually.

Assignment #12

Scenarios. Do a movie from an existing, stock scenario. Or 1 person write scenario, another shoot movie. Or GRABAG scenario—everyone write 2-3 scenes, drop in box, someone pull out maybe 10 and they are shot in the order drawn out. Or everyone do their version of the grabag scenario.

Assignment #13

Repaired or patched art. Recycled. Find something broken and discarded. Perhaps in a thrift store. Mend it.

Assignment #14

Photograph of umbrella and sewing machine on an operating table. That’s Surrealism isn’t it?

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Baldessari’s influence helped make CalArts a destination that young student artists from all over the country and world desired to study at. One of those alumni is conceptual artist Nayland Blake, who has become a very influential arts educator as well.

Blake’s 100 assignments, which are featured in their book from My Studio Is a Dungeon Is the Studio: Writings and Interviews, 1983–2024 (an excerpt has been published on Hyperallergic), express the tenets of what art education can do for the body, mind and spirit. There is a healthy balance of joyful play and critical reflection throughout these prompts, which serve multiple outcomes, such as skill and technique building or flexible purposing. The latter is a John Dewey coined term that means having the wherewithal to shift plans, processes and goals rather than rigidly following to a predefined outcome.

Blake explains that “Good assignments awaken us to the breadth of possibilities available to us rather than narrow ­things down to one possibility. They are the scaffolding we build to touch the unexpected and wild within ourselves. They are how we stretch. ­There is no right or wrong answer. ­There is only the next ­thing to do.”

A good assignment has several key aspects, each of which Blake addresses. First, there is the concept of instructional scaffolding, wherein the assignment provides a temporary support system that facilitates students’ learning new skills and knowledge. This can be done through build up exercises like mini-assignments (an assignment within the assignment) and guided assignments whereby the teacher and students work on a project together as a means to build students’ understanding, mastery and independence for doing the larger task with less guidance.

Next is the idea of rightness of fit and Praxis, which means that an assignment can have multiple outcomes and involves an organic process of trial and error, combined with formal and informal assessments along the way to determine whether the objectives have been met or if they need to be adjusted. In other words, instead of having a didactic approach, you employ and rely on a mix of sensory and emotional discernment.

Finally, a good assignment should be engaging, and in many cases, fun. We might not typically connect education and learning with fun, and that is part of the problem. When educators make the learning process intrinsic with joy and discovery, it increases the likelihood that the information/lesson/skills are retained.

Blake’s assignments have all of the previously mentioned elements. Furthermore, these are prompts that are equally accessible to those with limited artistic experience and the seasoned scholarly artist. In fact, many of them are worth revisiting as you build or hone new skills, techniques and aesthetic or conceptual experiences.

Creativity and learning through the arts is a fluid endeavor, and also one that encourages us to expand outside of our preconceived notions of what it means to create and interact with objects and experiences in the world. If you are in a rut, try giving yourself an assignment from the many existing lists such as the ones developed by Baldessari and Blake. But as Blake astutely notes, “Take the action, and let go of the result.” It is not strictly about the endpoint or product; the focus should be on the journey and the things that one encounters and builds along the way.