An analysis of the dichotomy between plastic production and conceptual production in the context of basic art education

This study aims to reconcile the ongoing dichotomy between plastic production-conceptual production in contemporary basic art education. It argues that this dichotomy stems from the 'Making Art' school, which produces plastic-focused results by interpreting traditional and conceptual art tools within its own defined 'production' understanding, while disregarding the 'Art Language' school proposed by conceptual artists-educators. It adds that the 'Art Language' school also contributes to this dichotomy by interpreting art as the meta-language of traditional arts without explaining the linguistic nature of the traditional means. Within this framework, it demonstrates that both schools are fundamental educational models of formal and conceptual art that emerged in the 1960s as a result of early modernist art being subjected to the reductionist approach characteristic of logical positivists. From this point, in order to reconcile the dichotomy of plastic production-conceptual production, it goes back to Bauhaus Vorkurs (Pre-Course) and Marcel Duchamp's readymade concept, which are the origins of each. And, it analyses these as works that externalise the possibility of the faculties of percepting and understanding presented by Immanuel Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason. Thus, it reaches the conclusion that the dichotomy between plastic production-conceptual production in basic art education can be overcome when it is shown that the basic tools of art are linguistic (representational) planes that externalise the conditions of human experience. Keywords: Basic art education, critique of pure reason, vorkurs, readymade.