DESCRIPTION: In this activity, students select artworks and decide how to display them. Specifically, students can explore the spaces of a virtual model of Atelier Van Leishout's sculpture The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, in which they plan to put up an exhibtion. Students should pretend that they turn the spaces of the sculpture into a gallery or museum by selecting artworks from the Walker Art Center's collection and the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.

OBJECTIVES: To understand the role of the curator and why an artwork is chosen. To understand that the works they see in a gallery are chosen by someone rather than randomly placed there.
To make an informed judgement about art (describe, analyze, interpret) and to observe groupings of work in galleries.

PROCEDURE: When you visit a museum or a gallery, have you ever questioned who decides what is shown in its spaces or what is included in the museum's collection? Do you think that each artist makes this decision for their own work? Have you noticed anything odd or different about the way artwork is placed or do you think it is placed there by chance? Why do you think specific artworks are displayed together? Do you think they are always displayed together? Would you view each work differently of it were displayed next to different other works every time?

These are all questions asked by museum personnel called the curators. In this activity, students will play out the role of curators in deciding, analyzing, and discussing works of art and their connections. The empty spaces of Atelier van Leishout's sculpture provide a unique place to host an art show. Students may use the virtual spaces to host an exhibition. If they were the curators and their gallery space is the Atelier van Leishout cabin, what kind of exhibition would they put up? Students should look at artworks from the Walker Art Center's collection and make decisions about where to place the artwork in the cabin. They should explain why they selected what they did and why they placed it where they did.

GO TO THE INTERACTIVE ACTIVITY

GRADUATION STANDARDS:
(1) Read, View, Listen
(2) Write and Speak
(3) Literature and the Arts
(5) Inquiry
(7) People and Cultures

Age Level:Appropriate for students at grades 9 and up.
Artworks Used: Any artworks that fit a certain theme.
Related to MSG: Yes

© 1998 WALKER ART CENTER