4P visits the Art Gallery: a blast from the past

The other day I was going through some boxes of children's drawings (all my children are adults now) and I came upon one of my daughter's exercise books from grade 4. I'm posting an excerpt here because it describes a school excursion to the Art Gallery of NSW. (It is exactly as written – no corrections.)

4P lerning to Look

tues 29th may  4p visits the art Gallery

The art Gallery is a place were you go to enjoy your self and thats what 4p did when they went to the art Gallery.

4p got the train at Tempe and got off at St James. 4p ate recess at Hyde park in front of a wishing fouwntane. After recess we went on the moving walk way. It was fun. We had to walk on the wet grass all the water skwerted up into our shoes. When we got to the art Gallery we went on a chair that went up and down when a man bangs down a hamer. Then 4p was split into three groups.

My dad took one group and two volintir gids took the two other groups. I was in my dads group of cours. There is lots of interesting thing to see at the art Gallery but your not aloud to touch. If you do touch you will get into BIG trouble. My dad and the two volintir gids talked about what the shapes the people in the painting would like and what colurse too. Dads group went down to the aberigenal exerbision then 4p had to leave. We had lunch on the bottom floor of center point then we went in the Queen Victoria bilding were mum took one group and miss poulos took the other. It was fun there to. Then the two groups met each other agen and we walked down to central station were we got on a train that would take us to Tempe station and we walked back up to the school.

Who is Russell Aridsvalley?

Everyone’s heard of people with names that go with their jobs (eg Rev. Godwin). But the other day I was thinking of some artists whose surnames seem to suit their style of art. Here’s a list of artists where the surnames have been changed into words that have a very similar meaning. Can you work out who they are? (The first two should be pretty easy.)

• Jeffrey Clever
• Francis Hogmeat
• Peter Ascending
• Philip Oddity
• Russell Aridsvalley
• Sydney Yearn

Hints: 
They’re all represented in the collection of the Art Gallery of NSW.
All but one is Australian.
One is a photographer.

Sorry, there are no prizes, just a sense of smug satisfaction. :-)

Can you think of any more?

I don't know much about the web but I know what I like

The Web is a bit like an art museum: an amazingly rich resource which is too easily squandered. I have just posted an article on my website (originally presented as a paper at the Ark Group Information Architecture Forum, and at Oz-IA 2009), which introduces principles and techniques used in art museum education and shows how they can be applied in web construction, writing and design. It offers insights into:

• transforming information chaos into information order
• eliminating inessentials
• making personal connections with visitors (or users) through relevance and participation, while minimising cognitive load
• structuring content in terms of what visitors want to know and do, rather than “internal, organisational imperatives”
• the need for unity and consistency, to allow visitors to build up a mental model of the site
• showing a human face, where appropriate.

Read more...

Challenging some myths about art

I thought, for a change, instead of writing about museums and multimedia, I’d write about art – specifically, art appreciation. (This is actually how I came into the museum-web world.)

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Art is a contradiction for many people. On the one hand it surrounds us all the time: most houses have at least one painting hanging on the wall, even if it’s just a reproduction; and one art form in particular – photography – seems to be everywhere around us. On the other hand, art is regarded by many as mysterious and rarefied, something for that special group of people: the “artistic”. Ask someone to say something about art and the most likely response you will get will be, “I like it”, “I don’t like it”, or an indifferent shrug. Why is this? Well, maybe many feel ill-equipped to say something intelligent and don’t want to appear foolish. So, it’s easier to build up a barrier, in the form of myths, between themselves and “Art” (with a capital A). Here are some of my favourite myths:

• “I don’t know much about art but I know what I like.”
  Actually, I don’t know what I like and I don’t want to. I want to be surprised. “Liking” means judging, and judging – too easily – gets in the way of enjoying. In fact it’s possible to enjoy a work of art without liking it.
• “Art should be beautiful.”
  Some people (e.g. art historians and critics) disagree – citing, for example, much of Goya’s work or Picasso’s Guernica – but I say “All great art is beautiful; it’s just that my concept of ‘beauty’ is broader than most people’s.” Sometimes the best way to appreciate “difficult” art is to keep exposing yourself to it. If it’s got something going for it, some lasting quality, it will probably grow on you.
• “To properly appreciate art you need to know the historical background.”
  Actually, background information can sometimes take you away from appreciating an art work. There are two types of information about an artwork: intrinsic and extrinsic. My advice is: get as much of the intrinsic information first. For example, you might read, or hear a tour guide say, “Rembrandt was a miller’s son.” So what? Does that really help you to understand Rembrandt’s art?
• “I’m not artistic.”
  This usually means, “I can’t draw; therefore I have no right to understand art.” Sure, if you’re not a painter you probably wouldn’t know whether the artist used rose madder or vermilion, but that’s just the mechanics of painting. I can’t play the violin but I can enjoy and appreciate a violin concerto.
  Do artists make art for other artists? No (well, mostly not).
• “Modern art is rubbish; a child could do it.”
  There are two responses to this one:
  a. You’d be surprised how hard “easy” art is to make.
  b. One of the breakthroughs of modern art (basically from the 20th century on) was “unlearning” the sophistication of adulthood.
  “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” – Picasso
  

SmARThistory

Smarthistory.org is one of those rare things on the web: an innovative site that actually works, and is very useful.

Here’s an excerpt from their “About” page:

Smarthistory.org is a free multimedia web-book designed as a dynamic enhancement (or even substitute) for the traditional art history textbook. Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker began smARThistory in 2005 by creating a blog featuring free audio guides in the form of podcasts for use in The Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Soon after, we embedded the audio files in our online survey courses. The response from our students was so positive that we decided to create a multimedia survey of art history web-book. We created audios and videos about works of art found in standard art history survey texts, organized the files stylistically and chronologically, and added text and still images.

Of course it’s not “comprehensive”, but it’s pretty vast nevertheless. It’s all western art and, as far as I can see, mostly from New York collections (which is hardly surprising, considering its origins). But I’m intrigued by the use of video to concentrate on individual works of art. Eg: have a look at the page on Diane Arbus’ Boy with a Toy Hand Grenade - For the first 2 minutes, all you see is the artwork. Then, the photographer’s contact sheet. Then the photograph again but, as the two discuss it, you see their mouse pointer moving around the image. Very simple, basic technology (which produces a slightly annoying trail of tiny, vertical lines) but it does the job.

I also like the way you can explore by time, style, artist and theme.

Also worthy of note is how they have allowed public participation by integrating photos from their own Flickr group.

New art education web resource - Simon Schama's Power of Art

Have only had a quick look at it but it looks pretty interesting so far:
www.pbs.org/wnet/powerofart

It's based on a PBS TV series. But all the episodes are viewable online.

Art and mathematics

What do mathematics and art have in common? Some people see these two disciplines as incompatible by definition. Others see mathematics within art, at least in areas such as geometry and perspective. I have just published an essay on my personal/professional website in which I try to dig a little deeper, to examine the principles and philosophies of these two disciplines and how they might relate.

View essay

500 years of women in art

Here's an interesting Flash animation: 500 years of female portraits in Western art (condensed in a three minute morphing video). It's interesting: this technology has been around for years, so it's amazing no-one's done this sort of thing before (well, as far as I'm aware, anyway).