Mobile of Floating Fears
Summer Teacher Institute for Elementary Teachers: August 4th-6th, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, 10am to 3pm
When everything goes right, a mobile is a piece of poetry
that dances with the joy of life and surprises.
– Alexander Calder
At its core, the work of artist Alexander Calder is approachable, human, and playful. In the Museum of Contemporary Art exhibition Alexander Calder and Contemporary Art: Form, Balance, Joy, Calder’s accessible, popular work is in dialogue with the more challenging aesthetics of contemporary artists. This juxtaposition evokes questions about how different art works invite different types of engagement, and provoke thought, pleasure, or discomfort.
Although our understanding of the mission of art museums, particularly those devoted to modern and contemporary art, has evolved over the years, there remains for some the perception that they are enigmatic and elitist institutions. By extension, many teachers shy away from using contemporary art in their teaching because they feel that the entry point to understanding it is too narrow. As writer, activist, and curator Lucy Lippard pointed out, the field of contemporary art “has become mystified to the point where many people doubt and are even embarrassed by their responses.”
The MCA Summer Institute challenges traditional art education by using contemporary art as a bridge to connect the creative process to authentic learning. The visual art of our time is relevant to all subject areas and disciplines, providing teachers and students with a rich resource through which to consider new ideas, rethink the familiar, and enhance literacy.
Following Calder’s example we will awaken a playful spirit, and together seek ways to bring that attitude into the classroom as well as to art-viewing. Games, exercises, and hands-on projects will explore how fear affects our powers of perception, and how a playful approach might deepen our ability to see, understand, create, and learn.
Projects will seek to activate teachers’ imaginations around arts-integrated curriculum through a variety of media, reflection, and discussion. Activities will explore natural and physical science, language arts and visual arts, utilizing poetry, sculpture, collage, performance and shadow puppetry.
Guiding Questions:
How can a light playful approach open us to deeper ‘seeing’ and learning?
How does fear affect our powers of perception?
How can play empower?
How can we perceive an artist’s creative process through observing the artwork itself?
How does an artist’s creative process affect our viewing experience?
What can we learn in the museum that we can’t learn anywhere else?
Reading List:
Desai, Dipti, Jessica Hamlin, and Rachel Mattson. History as Art, Art as History: Contemporary Art and Social Studies Education. Curriculum as a Creative Process: Interview with Artist-Educator Thi Bui. Routledge, October 2009.
Warren,
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