Contemporary Art For Children

Art is not a series of stereotyped rules and regulations, it is a process of kinesis and it endlessly extends itself and its field. The main reason for contemporary art forms not being accepted widely lies in the fact that they have not been comprehended by the public.

In the current art education, art is limited to painting and ceramics in the pre-school and primary education and individuals do not come into contact with contemporary art almost until they go to university. Especially uneducated people have difficulty in comprehending what they see when they come across new approaches in visual arts. Moreover, some of them assume a cynical attitude.

Contemporary art education compreehends incidents and facts concerning the individual in their multidirectional nature and brings about personalities that are not only open to contemporary developments, forms and formations, but also tolerant to scientific-technological and socio-cultural transformation processes.

The level of contemporary civilization and the level of contemporary art run parallel to each other.

For many, getting acquainted with thşs kind of art, if they haven’ t gone to art schools, is by coincidence. Besides, in both instances there has been delay. The efforts of artists to carry art to the public sphere in order to gain access to a wider audience fall short because of the defects in the infrastructure.

The goal of this exhibition is to inform children about cultural quests that can be an alternative to the siege of the chaos of popular-arabesque culture, to encourage them as much as possible to find their own methods of expression, to open the way to meet with means of expression other than the traditional, stereotyped methods, to enable them to approach contemporary art with tolerance, to support them in reaching developed aesthetic judgments more easily and to prepare future audiences starting from today.

In our age, exhibitions, even the ones with works created by children, are presented only to the taste of grown-ups. In these exhibitions the works of children are displayed at the eye level of grown-ups. This manner fends off children from artworks. However, they should learn to become art viewers during their childhood.
As the artists turned out and installed their works for this exhibition they were asked to go beyond the customary patterns of exhbiting and take into consideration the physical and mental stage of children aged 14 and below who are the target audience. (For example, staying away from elements of pornography, violence, etc., in the images and the content.) Therefore, for this project artists, who are parents and academicians, have been chosen. It’s been predicted that these artists would show the necessary sensitivity more easily due to their familiarity with the target audience.

Since the artists participating in the exhibition approached their works from a pedagogical standpoint, and turned out and installed their works considering children, they will no doupt contribute to introducing new horizons to the children. Thus, the artists will present samples showing that the language of art has no boundaries and encourage children to expose a free attidute in their own creations.

Ozgul ARSLAN TOSUNOGLU