Complicating Visual Culture

Arguing for complicating the study of visual culture, as advocated by James Elkins, this article explicates and explores Lacanian psychoanalytic theory and pedagogy in view of its implications for art education practice. Subjectivity, a concept of import for addressing student identity and the visual, steers the discussion informed by pedagogical perspectives of Lacan from theorists Mark Bracher, Shoshana Felman, and jan jagodzinski. A reading of contemporary artist Glenn Ligon's work, Annotations (2003) demonstrates how unconscious desires, affective responses, and multiple, shifting, and contradictory beliefs are central to Lacanian psychoanalytic pedagogy and subjectivity in classroom practice.