18th-Century Art for the 21st-Century Classroom –3

18th-Century Art for the 21st-Century Classroom –3

 

Teachers create their own objects inspired by 18th-century French furniture.

Collage inspired by an 18th-century table, and the love of a dog named Otis, created by a participant in the Art and Language Arts alumni event.

As an art student, developing this activity was also meaningful for my own practice and my connection with the Museum. My paintings and performances are rooted in my grandmother’s diasporic narratives across Asia. More and more, I find myself wanting to engage with cross-cultural and cross-generational communities in my native Los Angeles. Before my internship this summer, I had visited the Getty Center and the Getty Villa on multiple occasions, but felt very distant and excluded from the Getty’s primarily western European collection. I don’t remember being excited by a work of art except for Van Gogh’s Irises, and that was only because I self-identified with the title of the work.

 

Because of my internship, I enjoyed a space to reconsider my reactionary sentiments about the representation of upper-class western Europeans in art collections, and how I could address those sentiments creatively with people who may feel similarly. I was fortunate enough to work with an incredibly encouraging supervisor, Theresa Sotto in teacher programs, who was supportive of my ideas. The challenge for me this summer was to provide a space for visitors to identify with, contest, reject, or fantasize about the histories and identities of collection objects while making relevant connections to their lived experiences. Encouraging students to make personal connections with art collections is one way to ensure that museums continue to build relationships with the heterogeneous communities of Los Angeles 10 years from now, 50 years from now, 100 years from now.

Tags: Art & Language Arts, art-making, arts education, Douglas Kearney, French art, Getty Museum collection, K-12 programs, Mark Bradford, teachers

 

By Iris Yirei Hu on August 29, 2012 under Behind the Scenes, Decorative Arts, Education, Events, J. Paul Getty Museum

 

from: getty.edu