“A Year With Children 2017” Exhibition
Guggenheim Museum
This event has ended.
Now in its 46th year, Learning Through Art (LTA), the pioneering arts education program of the Guggenheim Museum, presents the exhibition A Year with Children 2017. The annual presentation organized by the Guggenheim’s Sackler Center for Arts Education showcases select artworks by students in grades two through six from eleven public schools who participated in LTA during the 2016–17 school year, representing each of New York City’s five boroughs. More than one hundred creative and imaginative works, including collages, drawings, found objects, installations, paintings, poems, and prints, will be on display in the museum’s Tower Level 4 gallery.
Program Overview
A Year with Children is an annual exhibition that presents art by students participating in the Guggenheim’s Learning Through Art (LTA) teaching artists program. Since 1970 LTA has encouraged curiosity, critical thinking, and collaborative investigation at the museum, in the classroom, and beyond. In the 2016–17 school year, twelve teaching artists oversaw sixteen residencies in eleven New York City public schools, working with classroom teachers to develop projects that promote visual literacy while exploring and making connections with ideas and themes related to the school’s curriculum. Additionally, LTA immerses students in the artistic process, prompting them to view themselves as artists. Each student is given a sketchbook and an artist’s apron. Throughout the program, teaching artists demonstrate practices and explorations similar to those that they use to spark their own creativity. Students’ investigations are also inspired by the Guggenheim exhibitions they visit during the school year. This year, these included Agnes Martin, Tales of Our Time, and Visionaries: Creating a Modern Guggenheim, as well as works on view in the Kandinsky and Thannhauser galleries. When viewing art, students participate in inquiry-based discussions that elicit careful observation and interpretation.
LTA, originally conceived as Learning to Read Through the Arts, was founded by Natalie Kovner Lieberman in response to the elimination of art and music programs in New York City public schools. Since its inception, LTA has served nearly 150,000 children and their families, primarily in New York City public schools.
The participating schools are: in the Bronx, PS 86 (Kingsbridge Heights); in Brooklyn, PS 8 (Brooklyn Heights) and PS 9 (Prospect Heights); in Manhattan, PS 28 (Washington Heights), PS 38 (East Harlem), and PS 42 (Chinatown); in Queens, PS 88 (Ridgewood), PS 130 (Bayside), PS 144 and PS 175 (Rego Park), and PS 317 (Rockaway Park); and in Staten Island, PS 48 (Grasmere).
Exhibition Overview
A Year with Children 2017 features selected projects by student artists in grades two through six who worked throughout the year to explore materials and techniques, develop personal sketchbooks, and express their unique perspectives. Classroom teachers and teaching artists used “essential questions” such as “Where do new ideas come from?” and “How do our small actions result in big changes?” to guide the yearlong curriculum. These questions, linked to themes that were personally meaningful to students, were explored by looking at and making art.
LTA considers the classroom a learning lab where the power of arts integration and creative thinking can encourage the production of inspiring and technically impressive works of student art. Teaching artists used multimodal approaches, incorporating text, music, games, and collaboration, to teach process and technique. By understanding the foundations of art, students were able to explore a wide variety of artistic mediums, both traditional and experimental.
A Year with Children 2017 is organized by the Education Department at the Guggenheim Museum: Greer Kudon, Associate Director; Emmy Goldin, Associate Manager; Amy Boyle, Education Associate; and Lilly Kustec, Education Coordinator.
Kim Kanatani, Deputy Director and Gail Engelberg Director of Education at the Guggenheim, commented, “The annual Year with Children exhibition is an opportunity to highlight the thoughtful and creative work that Learning Through Art facilitates in public school classrooms across New York City. Through participation in LTA, students are immersed in the creative process that includes research, brainstorming, planning, revision, materials exploration and synthesis. As it moves towards its 50th anniversary, LTA continues to provide high-quality visual arts education that supports the both the curriculum and individual expression.”
Select Highlights
“Four-Sided Me” at PS 42, Manhattan
Fourth Grade, Teaching artist: Jen Cecere
At PS 42, fourth-graders focused on the essential question, “How do we shape our world?” Through social studies explorations of historical figures, students delved into history from past to present by imagining their personal role in history’s future. Students learned portraiture as a technical skill and also as a vehicle for self-expression. Student artists created four-sided wooden sculptures incorporating aspects of their personal identity: their present self, future self, animal spirit, and either an historical figure or present-day influencer. By thinking critically about who they are and who they aspire to be as adults, student artists play an active role in shaping their world.
“Personal Printing” at PS 9, Brooklyn
Fourth Grade, Teaching artist: Megan Pahmier
Fourth-grade students at PS 9 studied how artists commit to ideas, materials, and processes over time. Students reflected on their identity through art-making activities that explored their interests, values, and personal motivations. By designing their own personal symbols, students transformed complex ideas into a unique visual language. They created multiple printing plates using foam, yarn, fabric, wood, and cardboard, which they then used to compose a personal flag. Students also learned the processes of indigo dyeing and sewing. By exploring a variety of methods to make a work of art, students were able to observe the changes that occurred with each new step, while understanding the value of revision, reflection, and commitment.
“Beyond the Cube” at PS 86, Bronx
Fourth Grade, Teaching artist: Molly O’Brien
Students in fourth grade at PS 86 explored the concept of sameness and difference. Their final projects began as identical cubes but as the weeks progressed each student brought their own personal expression to their cube by adding paint and further construction to it. Inspired by architects Zaha Hadid (1950–2016) and Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959), the cubes reference ideas evoked in their works, focusing on how a building can veer away from traditional shapes. Through this process students came to understand the how innovation requires risk and “outside the box” thinking.
Media
Schedule
from April 28, 2017 to June 04, 2017