GROW at the Nasher: March 2017

Tuesday, March 21, 2017

Odd Jewels Tour, Part Two

Since the first part of the Odd Jewels tour focused on three artworks, we had just one more stop on the tour. Students began by sketching the sculpture below. Then, they took the role of the artist and made up a title for the sculpture.

This sculpture was made in 1976 and is an enlarged version of something that was found in every office at that time. Do you recognize this object? It might be hard to recognize taken out of its original context and placed in an art museum. (Don't scroll down until you're ready for the answer!)

Typewriter Eraser by Claes Oldenburg

The artist Claes Oldenburg enjoyed playing in his father's office when he was a young child. He has said that this work was the result of “thinking about what might fall out of an office building.” Does this sculpture look like a falling eraser? Why or why not?

3rd grade

3rd grade

4th grade

5th grade

If you were asked to make a sculpture based on an object that you would find in an office today, what would you choose?

Tuesday, March 7, 2017

Odd Jewels Tour, Part One

In November and December, the third-, fourth-, and fifth-graders explored the gallery adjacent to the Kathryn Andrews: Run for President exhibition. Special exhibition artists are often invited to select works of art from the Nasher's collection to be on view during their exhibition; in this case, Kathryn Andrews selected all the works of art on view in this gallery. While talking about her selections, she referred to them as "odd jewels." At the beginning of the tour, we discussed the meaning of the words odd and jewels and kept those words in mind as we viewed different works of art.

Visit 2 Vocabulary:

enlarge / agrandar

plane / el plano

dream / sueño

relationship / relación

context / contexto

The students began the tour by writing a poem about themselves, which they read to a partner.

3rd grade

4th grade

5th grade

Below are a few examples of the students' poems.

Next, the students divided into three groups. Each group was assigned to one of the following sculptures and used the same template to write a poem about the artwork.

Constructed Head No. 2 by Naum Gabo

Head of a Woman (Tête de femme) by Pablo Picasso

Running Man at 2,550,116 by Jonathan Borofsky

3rd grade

4th grade

5th grade

Working individually or in groups, the students adopted the perspective of the figure in the sculpture. They wrote poems that not only described what they saw in the sculptures, but also imagined thoughtful, funny, and wistful personas for these figures.

About Constructed Head No. 2 by Naum Gabo

About Running Man at 2,550,116 by Jonathan Borofsky

After sharing our poems, we looked for commonalities between the three sculptures - what is the relationship between the sculptures? All three artworks show human figures. They also all have one or more flat planes. Can you find other similarities?

We also discussed how artists sometimes enlarge a small sculpture into a larger version. For example, Pablo Picasso created a larger version of Head of a Woman (Tête de femme) out of gravel and concrete, on view in the Nasher garden. Naum Gabo first designed the Constructed Head No. 2 in 1916, which he enlarged 59 years later to the almost six-foot tall stainless steel version that is in the Nasher collection.

3rd grade

4th grade

5th grade