By Karen Bloom
Get to the heart of the artistic experience by exploring art ³inside the frame² at Long Island Children¹s Museum¹s new exhibit, ³Inside Art: The World Inside the Frame.²
Opening Saturday, Feb. 3, the exhibit will attract the interest of adults as well as children. It enables children and their parents to be exposed to and make a connection with art, providing one of the necessary keys to aesthetic development.
During the exhibit¹s three-month stay, children can don a pair of overalls and join the other farmhands for a meal in Grant Wood¹s vintage farmhouse scene, ³Dinner for Threshers.² Then arrange a ceremonial pillar of flowers in Diego Rivera¹s ³Corn Festival² mural. Or maybe you¹d like to explore the turn-of-the-century campsite in John Singer Sargent¹s ³Camp at Lake O¹Hara?² Feel like taking a ride on a giant chicken? Climb on and grab the reins in folk artist Clementine Hunter¹s ³Big
Chicken.²
Visitors enter the Inside Art exhibition by stepping through a framed painting and walk into a world that immerses them in featured paintings by well-known artists. Each work is re-created as a three-dimensional, walk-in environment that includes a print of the artist¹s original work, as well as important facts about the artist¹s life and painting style. The exhibit text is presented in English and Spanish.
During their time ³inside the frame,² additional activities will draw children into explorations of art around the world and throughout history. Kids can hunt throughout the exhibit for images and items featured on cards that are grouped by patterns, shapes, animals, and more. Or build a sculpture; investigate original artwork made by children, go on an art hunt, or become the Mona Lisa.
³Inside Art is an exciting way to encourage children and adults to value and participate in the visual arts,² said LICM Executive Director Suzanne LeBlanc. ³At the Children¹s Museum we believe that there is a vital need for public spaces that exhibit creative works. This exhibit allows us to expand the museum¹s art focus.²
Inside Art is a traveling exhibit created by KidZibits, LLC, of Minneapolis, which premiered at Minnesota Children¹s Museum. The exhibit is getting its first east coast showing here at LICM.
³The wonderful thing is that it makes paintings three dimensional, so that you can literally enter art,² said LICM Director of Exhibits Erik Schurink. ³It¹s a nice selection of painters. With Leonardo Da Vinci¹s Mona Lisa as the exhibit¹s hook, someone everyone is familiar with, it serves as a connecting point for children to familiarize themselves with paintings that reflect on American culture.²
Visitors are able go behind the scenes of many famous paintings. Among them:
n Dinner for Threshers by Grant Wood
Enter Grant Wood¹s Dinner for Threshers and learn about rural life at the turn of the century. Visitors can tend to a chicken and eggs, prepare a meal in the kitchen, set the dining table, enjoy a noontime dinner, and mix and match the farmers¹ patterned shirts. Observe the painting¹s details, such as patterns, the farmers¹ tan lines and the hour of the meal.
n Camp at Lake O¹Hara by John Singer Sargent
Visitors travel to the Canadian Rockies in 1916 at John Singer Sargent¹s Camp at Lake O¹Hara. Children can climb inside a tent and explore camping gear like Sargent would have used. After cooking a pretend meal over the campfire, kids can tell stories around the fire and arrange items in a magnetic frame to show what a painting of today¹s campsite may look like.
n Big Chicken by Clementine Hunter
Step inside Big Chicken by Clementine Hunter, Louisiana¹s most famous female artist and folk art icon, and create imaginary animals like Hunter¹s ³goosters² by mixing body parts. Children and adults can load the cart with cotton, climb behind the reins of the giant rooster and take their load to town.
n Corn Festival by Diego Rivera
Travel south of the border through this piece from the Court of Fiestas in the Ministry of Education Building in Mexico City. Visitors can explore a rendition of one of Rivera¹s frescos, add flowers and ribbons of ³corn husks² to the flower tower for a celebration and include their flourish in a mural on a miniature
building.
This exhibit is in keeping with LICM¹s mission to broaden children¹s perspective of the visual arts, by showing it at the museum and by looking at through special exhibits, Mr. Schurink explained. ³We hope children and their families take away an appreciation of art and how you can learn and express yourself through art.²
LICM aids families in their aesthetic growth by providing opportunities to learn from visiting artists. During its Salvage City exhibit (June-September 2006) children were able to work alongside artist-in-residence Shirley Panton Parker as they constructed art pieces from recycled materials. In conjunction with Inside Art, Ms. Panton Parker will be exhibiting ³Dreamscapes,² using texture and material to add to the meaning of paintings.
Also, each month the Children¹s Museum features the artwork of local children in its Community Gallery. ³Exhibiting the artwork of our community¹s children is one way to encourage them to value and participate in the visual arts,² noted Ms. LeBlanc. ³Inside Art will help children and adults to make personal connections to art that will, hopefully, initiate a lifelong appreciation for art.²
Inside Art: The World Inside the Frame
Opening Saturday, Feb. 3 through Apr. 29. Children must be accompanied by an adult. Open Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Admission: $9 for adults and children over 1 year old, $8 seniors, free to members and children under one year. Additional fees for theater and special programs may apply. 11 Davis Ave., Garden City. (516) 224-5800.
