Visual Arts · Stage 6

Art, Society and Contemporary Issues

How art engages with politics, identity and institutions, including the gallery, the market and the politics of display.

Dot points
8
Module
4 of 4
Course
Visual Arts
01What this module asks of you

The 8 syllabus dot points in Art, Society and Contemporary Issues

These are the statements the Visual Arts syllabus makes about Art, Society and Contemporary Issues. Dux records each one against the questions you answer, so you can see which of them you have actually been tested on and which have never been asked.

  1. 01

    Art and Society: Contemporary Issues

    How contemporary practice engages with politics, identity, technology and the environment.

  2. 02

    Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art

    The diversity of Indigenous practice, its relationship to Country and law, and the problem of reading it only through a Western frame.

  3. 03

    The Body in Art

    The body as subject, material and site, and the ethical questions that follow.

  4. 04

    Text and Image

    Works that use language as a visual and conceptual element, and what the combination can say that neither can alone.

  5. 05

    Portraiture and Identity

    How portraiture constructs rather than records a self, including the conventions it inherits and subverts.

  6. 06

    Landscape and the Environment in Art

    Landscape as a cultural construction, and contemporary practice that treats the environment as a political subject.

  7. 07

    Feminism and Art

    Feminist critique of the canon, the representation of women, and the conditions of making that the critique exposed.

  8. 08

    The Gallery, the Market and Display

    How institutions and markets shape which art is seen and valued, including curation as an interpretive act.

02How it is examined

What a Art, Society and Contemporary Issues question asks you to do

HSC Visual Arts - Written Paper Shape is 50 marks in 90 minutes. Questions on Art, Society and Contemporary Issues are not one shape repeated: the command word decides what the marker is looking for, and the mark value decides how much of it. These are the ones Visual Arts uses.

analyse4–6compare4–6evaluate3–5evaluate8–10explain3–5explain6–8identify1justify2–4

Dux writes practice for this module in exactly these shapes, so the drill is the same task the paper sets — not a general knowledge quiz with the module name on it.

03Where this module sits

Art, Society and Contemporary Issues in the Visual Arts course

Art, Society and Contemporary Issues is module 4 of 4 in Visual Arts. Students routinely lose marks because a question spans two modules, so the neighbouring modules are worth reading next to this one.

Find the Art, Society and Contemporary Issues dot points you have never been asked

Dux diagnoses Visual Arts dot point by dot point, then writes questions in the shape this course marks. Written answers come back marked against the bands.