The case for the primacy of visualcy within a neoliberal Artschool curriculum

Abstract

Whilst the faculties of literacy and numeracy are rightly recognised as worthy of pedagogical nurturing, this article champions a more venerable articulacy – visualcy – crucial to a healthy culture, arguing that the one domain of human inquiry which distinguishes the visual arts from other disciplines is surely that surrounding the faculty of vision. The ascendency within the contemporary artworld of a relational aesthetics is traced through a brief history of the relationships between visual artforms and their socio-political contexts. It is suggested that the shift of emphasis away from the perceptually intriguing is in part a consequence – perhaps unintended – of the neoliberal values permeating the UK Higher Education sector in the last decade. The article ends with a proposal for a visual arts pedagogy based on five key principles of visualcy explored through the medium of drawing, illustrated with work by the author and students.