Students Explore The Importance of Art in New Course with Dean Emerita Carol Becker

Professor of the Arts Carol Becker, a writer, educator, and former dean of Columbia University School of the Arts and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, has a long history of examining the role of artists in the world.

This fall, she continued her exploration with an interdisciplinary course entitled Art and Artists in Society, both a passion project and a platform for the subject that has so fascinated her.  

The course is a hybrid graduate seminar where School of the Arts students from different disciplines explore the role of art and artists in society, reading relevant works, seeking out historical precedents, and engaging in round table discussions to share their findings. Students are also encouraged to consider their own role as artists, and the role of their work in society.

While the class leaves space for new discoveries and open discussion, it’s also a conduit for seeking answers to pointed questions. Among them: What kind of concrete impact do artists have on society? What are some examples of art or artists having lasting effects on our culture, our politics, our shared beliefs? And perhaps most pointed of all: In a world that feels like it’s falling apart, why is art even important?

In addition to her pedigree as a writer and educator, Becker is in many ways the ideal candidate for the subject matter. She even wrote the book(s) on it, publishing The Subversive Imagination: Artists, Society, and Social Responsibility in 1994 with Routledge, and following it the next year with The Artist in Society: Rights, Roles & Responsibility in 1995 with the New Art Examiner and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She continued the study in several subsequent works. 

Additionally, Becker's tenure as Dean of the School of the Arts began in 2007 while George W. Bush was still in office, and spanned four U.S. Presidents over 16 years. Needless to say, she’s seen firsthand the role of artists in society, even as that society changes over time; and her commitment to the subject has never wavered.

“All the years that I was the Dean, I wanted to teach this class, but I didn’t have the time,” she recalled. “When I knew I was coming back to teach, I was excited at the opportunity.” 

Especially important for Becker in bringing the class to fruition was creating a space for School of the Arts students to connect across disciplines; film, theatre, visual arts—everyone would have a seat at the table. It was a practice she began on a smaller scale during her time as Dean.

“I had these lunches every few weeks with students and the idea was to have students meet each other from multiple disciplines, because they don’t,” she recalled. “The school demands so much of everyone in terms of the form they’ve come in through, that it really doesn’t give people a lot of time to experiment with anything else.”

The new class follows through on Becker’s vision for multidisciplinary exploration, and even opened its doors for one student working toward an MA in Global Thought, and another from the Journalism School. For Becker, it’s an example of form fitting content, and speaks not only to the diversity of the arts community, but to the diverse forms that art can take in today’s landscape. 

“Artists have the tools to speak to people in multiple ways, and in multiple forms,” said Becker, “forms which can open people’s hearts, and consciousness.”

In the wake of a polarizing election, and widespread conflict both domestic and international, the role of art and artists in society takes on a new context, and a new significance.

“I think one of the things people are feeling right now [is] a kind of desolateness,” she said. “That feeling of, ‘Well, now what?’ But if you shut off the creative part of yourself, that’s when you truly get depressed.” 

For Becker, trying times only elevate the need for the arts and the artists creating them. While she was quick to acknowledge the potential anxiety and concerns of her students following the election, she knew the arts could be both balm and rallying cry.

“We didn’t go on and on about the election,” she said, recalling their first class back after November 5. “I just said, ‘let’s read Blake, we’ll feel better.’”  

While the romantic poet William Blake offered some solace, Becker also offered her students a challenge in the form of writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin; reading a quote from the author written out on a notecard:

"I have never been in despair about the world. Enraged, I’ve been enraged by the world, but never despair. I cannot afford despair. You can’t tell the children that there is no hope."

“Hope is so essential, and hope exists in the imagination,” added Becker. “Without imagination, you really can’t envision the future. 

“People who know how to cultivate the imagination are very valuable in history, because they are the ones who can see beyond what’s happening at the moment,” she said, “not by not looking at the moment, but by piercing through the moment to the other side.”

This historical precedent of artists transcending their era is another focal point for the class.  One session had them read a book on Pablo Picasso’s famous 1937 painting Guernica. Created as a response to Nazi bombing during the Spanish Civil War, the work has resonated far beyond its initial context. 

“That painting has been used over and over and over again by anti-war movements throughout history,” said Becker. “It’s the most political thing Picasso did, and he never really did it again, but that painting,” she added, “that painting has been an enormous force.”  

For Becker, studying the past is one way to connect students with a larger tradition, a tradition to which they now belong. “It’s all about saying, you’re historically not alone,” said Becker. “There’ve been a lot of creative people before, and you should know who they are, and you should know how they thought, and you should take courage from them. And that’s kind of what the course has been.”

In considering their role in society, the course is both a reminder for students of a shared legacy, and a call to action for their continuing practice. “We’re bringing new thought and form into the culture of the time,” said Becker. “If [students] leave with just one idea that informs how they will go forward in the world, I’m happy.”

What is the role of art and artists in a world that feels like it’s falling apart? It’s an ongoing question, and Becker knows the next generation will continue providing answers. “The whole bulk of my adult life has been with art students, so I put my faith in art students.”

For those eager to answer the call, Becker is teaching a follow-up course next semester, The Subversive Imagination; a continued study of the artist’s role, and responsibility, in society.