LESSON OVERVIEW

This lesson plan about Banksy and the other artist Maurizio Cattelan deals with controversial art. The worksheet is based on two videos presenting works of art by these two artists.

WARM-UP & VOCABULARY

VIDEO & DISCUSSION

After that, students move to watching the videos. They have to watch both of them and using vocabulary from the previous exercise, summarize what they’ve seen. The videos present two pieces of art. One is Banksy’s Girl with Balloon which was shredded during an auction. The other video presents Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian: the work of art consisting of a banana taped to a wall with duct tape. After summarizing, students start a discussion on what they’ve watched. Next, they have two more exercises on vocabulary for expressing surprise and shock. First, they need to read a sentence from one of the videos and match the word unfathomable to its meaning. Next, they have another three sentences and need to match synonyms to the following words: unfathomable, shockingly, staggering.

QUESTIONABLE CASES FROM THE WORLD OF ART

Finally, students discuss some interesting cases from the world of art. When appropriate, they should use the words from the previous exercise. They will discuss a restoration failure, a controversial artwork, a prank by two teenagers at a museum and the most expensive sculpture sold by a living artist. We linked to images related to that in the task so either download it before the lesson or open them up during the class to show that weird cases, This lesson plan about Banksy and Maurizio Cattelan ends with a short optional discussion about art in general.