IB Visual Arts SL case studies
IB Visual Arts SL · Put your knowledge to work in context.
IB Visual Arts SL is the Standard Level course within the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme's arts group. It suits students who want serious, studio-based art-making alongside academic subjects, and who are ready to think and write about art as well as produce it. The IB Visual Arts SL case studies are 5 cases and about 3,102 words.
1The Copied Wave: Evidence and Influence in Cross-Cultural Comparison
An SL candidate has completed a ten-screen comparative study comparing Hokusai's Under the Wave off Kanagawa (c.1831), Van Gogh's The Starry Night (1889) and a 2019 digital animation by a contemporary Japanese artist who cites both. The draft's central claim is that Van Gogh 'copied Hokusai's wave' because both works use curling, claw-like forms and a dominant blue palette.
509 words, about 3 min2Both 'Ritual': Function, Context and the Limits of Equivalence
An SL candidate is comparing a Yoruba beaded crown (Nigeria, 19th-20th century), a thirteenth-century Limoges reliquary chasse, and a 2018 mixed-media installation using cowrie shells. The draft states: 'The first two objects are religious artefacts made to inspire awe in worshippers, showing that medieval Europe and Yoruba culture used art for the same purpose.' The third work is described only as 'using similar materials'.
698 words, about 3 min3Six Media, One Attempt Each: What Counts as Sustained Experimentation
An SL candidate's process portfolio contains eleven experiments across six media: cyanotype, digital collage, acrylic pouring, embroidery on photographs, clay slip casting and sound recording. Each experiment has a final photograph and a one-line caption such as 'I liked the contrast' or 'This did not work.' There are no tests of the same process at different exposure times, no notes on what was changed between attempts, and no artist references except one image of a Gerhard Richter painting.
612 words, about 3 min4Thirteen Works, Seven Slots: Editing an Exhibition
An SL candidate has 13 resolved works for an exhibition that permits 4-7. The works are six large acrylic self-portraits (each 120 x 90 cm), four small cyanotypes (30 x 40 cm) made from the same portrait negatives, and three glazed ceramic vessels (40-55 cm high).
642 words, about 3 min5The Title Is Not the Argument: Writing a Curatorial Rationale
An SL candidate submits a 400-word curatorial rationale for an exhibition of five works titled 'Unfixed': two self-portraits (one oil, one digital print), a single-channel video, a hanging textile and a photograph of a family archive. The draft opens: 'I have always been interested in identity.
641 words, about 3 min