MoMA | Category: Family & Kids

Posts in ‘Family & Kids’

November 18, 2015 | Collection & Exhibitions, Family & Kids, Film, Publications

Why I Like Black-and-White Movies

Posted by Anne Morra, Associate Curator, Department of Film

Like most children growing up in the last half of the 20th century, I dreamed of a 64-count box of Crayola crayons. In school we had eight-count boxes. I wanted 64—all the myriad colors including bittersweet, sky blue, and raw umber. The 64-count box also had a built-in sharpener. A virtual Technicolor assortment of waxy goodness and a sharpener to keep them in ready condition! What more could a child have wanted? I drew all kinds of pictures and shapes, some more recognizable than others.

March 31, 2015 | Family & Kids, Learning and Engagement

Considering Caregivers in MoMA Art Lab

Posted by Cari Frisch, Associate Educator, Family Programs

MoMA Art Lab: Places and Spaces. All photos by Martin Seck

As someone who develops programs and resources for families, I often think about the role of adults during a museum visit. In MoMA Art Lab: Places and Spaces, our interactive space, we are sensitive to the fact that each family has their own way of relating to one another, which might change from day-to-day. Some caregivers read a book while their child builds a tower on the floor; others might work with their child to design a structure at the art-making table;

October 30, 2014 | Collection & Exhibitions, Family & Kids, Publications

Inside Matisse’s Garden

Posted by Hannah Kim, Marketing and Book Development Coordinator, Department of Publications

Interior spread from Matisse’s Garden. © The Museum of Modern Art. Illustration by Cristina Amodeo. © Cristina Amodeo

“One day the artist Henri Matisse cut a small bird from a piece of white paper. It was a simple shape but he liked the way it looked and didn’t want to throw it out. So he pinned it on the wall of his apartment to cover up a stain.”

Cover of Matisse’s Garden, published by The Museum of Modern Art

Thus begins Matisse’s Garden, the story of an endlessly curious artist who used scissors and painted paper to make something utterly new. Written by Samantha Friedman, an assistant curator at MoMA and co-organizer of the exhibition Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs, and featuring colorful cut-paper illustrations by Italian designer Cristina Amodeo, it’s an immersive introduction to Matisse’s vibrant cut-outs.

August 27, 2014 | Family & Kids, Learning and Engagement

Psychedelic Acceptance Hotel and the Rainbow on Pluto: MoMA Teens x Babycastles

Posted by Calder Zwicky, Assistant Director, Teen and Community Partnerships

This summer’s In the Making program brought an incredibly diverse group of over 85 NYC teens into contact with a range of artists and arts organizations, for a series of six-week intensive art programs. Perhaps our most ambitious project ever, this summer’s collaboration with Babycastles, a non-profit video game-based gallery and arts collective, saw 23 teens working together on the creation of a fully-functional arcade, mural, and sculptural art installation.

August 21, 2014 | Family & Kids, Learning and Engagement

Trance-scendence: MoMA Teens Explore Hypnotism and Performance Art

Posted by Calder Zwicky, Assistant Director, Teen and Community Partnerships

Even after years of creating weird and off-kilter art courses for teens, one of the darkest and strangest teen art courses we’ve ever offered might very well be last season’s Under the Spell of Mysterious Forces: Magic, Illusion, and Performance Based Art. Taking the young participants deep into a realm where magic, trance, and extrasensory perception mingle with performance art, the course attracted a range of curious open-minded teens, all wiling to take the plunge into the artistic unknown.

March 20, 2014 | Collection & Exhibitions, Family & Kids, Publications,

Standing on a Lawn with Maira Kalman

Posted by Charles Kim, Associate Publisher, Department of Publications

Illustration from Girls Standing on Lawns by Maira Kalman

Maira Kalman—much-beloved artist, illustrator, writer, designer, and New Yorker—has been collecting vintage photographs for 30 years, seeking them out at antique shops, flea markets, and countless other places in the city and during her travels.

January 8, 2014 | Family & Kids, Learning and Engagement

Adventures in Surrealist Family Art Workshops

Posted by Rachel Ropeik, Family Programs Educator, Department of Education

As an educator at MoMA, one of the projects I have the most fun with is the Family Art Workshops. Workshops are programs where a museum educator leads a group through both a gallery experience and a hands-on art-making activity in a studio. I look forward to planning these, because usually museum educators do a lot of independent lesson planning, but for the workshops we get to work in teams. I’ve always loved collaborative brainstorming, so working together on these projects exercises that part of my brain. This fall, I put my head together with fellow Family Programs Educators Shannon Murphy, Keonna Hendrick, and Lynn Seeney to plan a workshop called Dreamscapes.

Our challenge was to make René Magritte’s work approachable for the workshop’s target age of four- to six-year-olds and their accompanying adults. Each educator teaching the workshop over the course of several weeks would do things slightly differently, but our general plan was to take families into the Magritte exhibition to discover how he painted everyday objects and made them strange or transformed in a variety of ways. After looking at and discussing a few paintings, we would head down to the studio to make Magritte-inspired Surrealist collages with cut shapes and patterned papers.

Our supplies were ordered, and we were ready to go, but there was one hiccup in our plans. By the time we hit late November/early December when our workshops were set to take place, the exhibition galleries were so crowded with Magritte devotees that we couldn’t reasonably expect groups of 20 kids and adults to maneuver through the space or sit on the floor to focus on paintings together.

Time for Plan B.

Looking at Surrealist paintings in the Museum’s galleries. Photo: Johnny Tan

Having a Plan B ready to go quickly and smoothly is the name of the game when you’re a museum educator, and we had a seasoned team of flexible educators contributing to this workshop. Luckily, we’re working at MoMA, where there is no shortage of great art, so we were able to shift our focus to some of the Surrealist works in the fifth-floor Painting and Sculpture Galleries. Thanks to the work of Marcel Duchamp, Giorgio de Chirico, and Salvador Dalí, we were able to get families to notice some of the main ideas—such as altering the way objects function, or compositional choices that create surreal spaces—that would help them collaborate on their own collage-style dreamscapes.

A MoMA educator demonstrating collage techniques. Photo: Johnny Tan

Participants working on collages. Photo: Johnny Tan

In the end, they may not have seen the Magritte paintings we’d originally intended to show, but the families who participated got to learn about transforming objects and settings to change a typical landscape into a mysterious dreamscape. And their collages would do any of the Surrealists proud, if you ask me.

A participant’s finished collage. Photo: Rachel Ropeik

August 14, 2013 | Collection & Exhibitions, Design, Family & Kids, Publications,

Introducing Young Frank, Architect

Posted by Hannah Kim, Marketing and Book Development Coordinator, Department of Publications

Cover of Young Frank, Architect, published by The Museum of Modern Art

Young Frank, Architect, MoMA’s first storybook for kids ages three to eight, follows the adventures of Young Frank, a resourceful young architect who lives in New York City with his grandfather, Old Frank, who is also an architect. Young Frank sees creative possibilities everywhere, and likes to use anything he can get his hands on—macaroni, old boxes, spoons, and sometimes even his dog, Eddie—to creates things like chairs out of toilet paper rolls and twisting skyscrapers made up of his grandfather’s books. But Old Frank is skeptical; he doesn’t think that’s how REAL architects make things.

One day, donning matching bow ties, straw boater hats, and Le Corbusier-inspired glasses, they visit The Museum of Modern Art, where they see the work of renowned architects like Frank Gehry and Frank Lloyd Wright. And they learn that real architects do in fact create wiggly chairs, twisty towers, and even entire cities. Inspired by what they see, Young Frank and Old Frank return home to build structures of every shape and size: “tall ones, fat ones, round ones, and one made from chocolate chip cookies.”

Spread from <i>Young Frank, Architect</i>

Spread from Young Frank, Architect

Written by award-winning children’s author and illustrator Frank Viva, a frequent cover artist for The New Yorker whose previous books include Along A Long Road and A Long Way Away, Young Frank, Architect is an inspiration for budding architects as well as a lesson for those who think they’ve seen everything. With its rich color palette of grays, olives, ambers, and cream (it’s printed using nine colors instead of the usual four), it’s a great introduction to MoMA’s diverse architecture and design collection, which includes surprising objects like Arthur Young’s helicopter in addition to furniture and architectural models.

Young Frank, Architect is a MoMA Exclusive for the month of August, meaning it’s available only at the MoMA Stores now through its wide release in September. Snag a copy and spend the dog-days of August exploring architecture. What will it inspire you to build?

To see more of Young Frank’s adventure, check out our video book trailer below.

July 31, 2013 | Artists, Family & Kids

MoMA Teens @ ARTBOOK @ MoMA PS1

Posted by Calder Zwicky, Assistant Director, Teen and Community Partnerships

MoMA Teens Alya and Stephanie posing with an unfolded zine.

Last year’s Cross-Museum Collective was a whirlwind of incredible, art-related experiences, from behind-the-scenes tours of MoMA’s Security Department (thanks LJ!) to hanging out with the conservation staff (thanks Roger!) to spending week after week exploring the galleries of MoMA PS1 and the spectacular work there—it’s insane just how much we were able to accomplish.

July 17, 2013 | Family & Kids, Tech

The MoMA Art Lab App: Looking for Richard

Posted by Maggie Lederer, Senior Producer, Digital Media

The MoMA Art Lab iPad app, released in the Apple Store about a year ago, is intended for children aged seven and above. Nine interactive activities feature a work in the Museum’s collection, along with descriptions of the artists’ processes.

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