Whitney Museum of American Art: Blogs (10 unread)

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  WECAN: Whitney Education Creates a New Neighborhood Network

  Posted: 16-May-2012, 10:44pm CEST

  Categories: EducationBlog

  

  As Education staff look ahead to the opening of the Whitney’s new building in the Meatpacking District in 2015, we are beginning the exciting process of reaching out to our future community. Following dozens of exploratory conversations with local stakeholders, we hosted the first official meeting of the Whitney Education Community Advisory Network (WECAN) on April 26. WECAN is a group of local residents, teachers, parents, and representatives from social service providers and community based organizations in the Whitney’s future neighborhood in downtown Manhattan. Through the creation of WECAN, we are seeking to involve our neighbors in an ongoing dialogue exploring ways that the Whitney can become an essential resource for this diverse and dynamic community. In the coming years, the network will meet bimonthly to engage in a series of conversations about the Whitney’s role in the new neighborhood and our educational programming.

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  Joanna Malinowska: Fieldwork

  Posted: 15-May-2012, 5:48pm CEST

  Categories: EducationBlog

  

  Engaging with painting, sculpture, performance, and video, the diverse projects of Joanna Malinowska are often inspired by her interest in cultural anthropology. On April 13, Public Programs invited Malinowska to construct an evening of discussion and demonstration that further explored key aspects of her contributions to the Biennial 2012 exhibition. In an event she titled Fieldwork, Malinowska recruited the Hungry March Band to stage a convergence of two groups of musicians playing stylistically different music. Malinowska cites the experimental music of Charles Ives as an inspiration for her project. Ives typically integrated many diverse musical traditions and styles into a single composition. One group started in the Sculpture Court, the other on the sidewalk in front of the Museum. A lively cacophony permeated the galleries as they marched around and towards one another, culminating in a “collision” in the Lower Gallery.

  The work Malinoswka created for the Biennial is just as multifaceted as the evening she curated: both incorporate a wide range of media and artistic references. Her sculpture From the Canyons to the Stars (2012), refers to Marcel Duchamp’s work Bottle Rack (1914). In the early twentieth-century, Duchamp famously presented this functional object as art and created the world’s first readymade. While Malinowska intentionally mimics the spiked cylindrical shape of this icon of modernism in her work, she abandons the original metal medium for replicas of the tusks of walruses and mammoths native to the Arctic region. The object, then, alludes to both the culture of Western modern art and the totems and rituals of of indigenous cultural traditions. Malinowska, however, privileges neither reference over the other, as it is their juxtaposition—the integration of seemingly incongruous cultural references into a single piece—that ultimately interests her. Will these diverse elements produce only chaos and noise or will they unexpectedly complement one another to create something beautiful? 

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  Youth Insights Leaders Tour the Biennial

  Posted: 10-May-2012, 8:17pm CEST

  Categories: TeensBlog

  

  During the few days before the Biennial 2012 exhibition opened, there was a buzz of energy at the Museum. All of the YI Leaders, including myself, were eager to explore the show and learn more about the artists and the pieces they had created. We did some preliminary research on the artists, but nothing prepared us for the works that we would eventually have to explain to touring teens.

  On March 5,  the YI Leaders got a chance to roam the floors. For the following month we prepared to give tours by learning about a variety of artists in the show.  We were very fortunate to meet with Elisabeth Sherman, the assistant to the curatorial team of this year’s Biennial. She provided great information about the individual artists, their ideas, studios, lives, and interests.

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  Teen Art Workshop with Elaine Reichek

  Posted: 4-May-2012, 9:56pm CEST

  Categories: EducationBlog

  

  Not many people can effectively explain Titian, T. S. Eliot, and tapestries to an audience of teenagers on a Friday night, but Biennial 2012 artist Elaine Reichek has that gift, plainly evident as she led a workshop for the Whitney’s Youth Insights (YI) participants on March 30. Part discussion, part art class, Reichek focused on her work from her ongoing series Ariadne’s Thread. 

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  NAEA Conference 2012

  Posted: 5-April-2012, 3:50pm CEST

  Categories: EducationBlog

  

  The 2012 National Art Education Association (NAEA) annual conference was held in New York from February 29−March 4. The conference brings together artists and arts educators from around the country, offering a forum for the exchange of ideas as well as numerous opportunities for professional development, with the ultimate goal of improving visual arts instruction in American schools and museums. Several members of the Whitney Education staff gave presentations and organized workshops for colleagues from around the country. Participation at these professional conferences keeps Whitney staff apprised of new developments and best practices and establishes Whitney Education as a national leader in the field.

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  Coins in the Concrete

  Posted: 12-April-2012, 4:12pm CEST

  Categories: EducationBlog

  

  On April 5, 2012, Museum director Adam Weinberg, Whitney senior staff, and the new building team gathered for an informal ceremony to commemorate the pouring of the concrete foundation for the Whitney’s new building in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District. 

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  Whitney Studio

  Posted: 24-April-2012, 4:20pm CEST

  Categories: EducationBlog

  

  Education is delighted to announce the opening of the Whitney Studio, a new education space conceived in collaboration with the New York-based architecture firm LOT-EK (pronounced “low-tech”). Installed in the Sculpture Court near the entrance to the Museum, the structure brings new visibility to the Whitney’s education programs. “We really do put education front and center,” said Museum director Adam D. Weinberg, in a recent New York Times article that featured the project.  

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  YI Writers Meet With Artist-in-Residence K8 Hardy

  Posted: 30-March-2012, 4:17pm CEST

  Categories: TeensBlog

  

  On March 6, YI Writers forgot the stresses of everyday responsibilities as they listened to K8 Hardy share her work. Hardy is an artist who eclectically represents herself through her vibrant, unexpected sense of style.  She discussed her art practice that is as malleable as she is, exuding an aura of relaxed creativity and fun.
  
  Hardy showed a PowerPoint presentation of her previous works that ranged from spontaneously performed online videos in New Report: Morning Edition, 2005 to self-portraits that attempt to redefine fashion, painted wear, and her ’zine, FashionFashion. Hardy will work with YI Writers to develop an understanding of our innate, shape-shifting sensibilities and hone each of our alter egos as a medium to create art, writing, and a collective ’zine.
  
  We toured part of the Whitney’s Biennial 2012 exhibition, exploring her pieces and the processes behind them. In an era dominated by computer screens and digitized culture, Hardy uses a darkroom to create her photographic images and manually-printed ’zines. These media choices create a classic simplicity and reveal her unique ingenuity.

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  Nicole Eisenman: Artist Talk and Drawing Workshop

  Posted: 12-April-2012, 10:19pm CEST

  Categories: TeensBlog

  

  I was very excited to meet artist Nicole Eisenman on Friday, March 9, at one of the Whitney’s teen talks. Her work is currently on view in the Biennial 2012 exhibition. The event was open to all New York City high school students and it was great to see a diverse group of youth who were there simply to hear Ms. Eisenman speak about her work. This was understandable, as the artist is known for her vivid colors, paint handling, subject matter, and especially her slightly misshapen figures that translate fluidly from paintings to prints.

  Ms. Eisenman sat comfortably in front of her wall of prints and spent a few minutes talking about her work, but she mostly opened up the discussion to the fifteen or so teens at the talk. A large crowd of Biennial viewers formed around the artist, but questions remained reserved for teens. Topics included her experience as an undergrad at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), finding inspiration in graphic novels by writers such as Charles Burns and paintings by French artist Claude Monet. She also spoke about the continuous aspects of her work, personal vs. private issues, and her choices of medium.  A comment that particularly stood out to me was about printmaking. The artist said that she made the prints on view during an emotional part of her life. She explained that the fast process of monoprinting (about fifteen to forty minutes), and the compositions that were mostly made up on the spot allowed her to capture a lot of emotion. 

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  Youth Insights Meet With Elaine Reichek

  Posted: 16-April-2012, 8:17pm CEST

  Categories: TeensBlog

  

  On March 30, Biennial artist Elaine Reichek met with Youth Insights and New York City teens. After an introduction in the Museum’s fifth-floor conference room, she took us to see and discuss her work in the exhibition.