The Nature of Arp, Part Four

The fourth and fifth grade students had a little extra time for one last stop during The Nature of Arp tour. We played a quick drawing game using a piece of paper folded into three equal sections. Students had one minute to draw whatever they wanted in the top section of the paper. At the end of the minute, they folded the paper so their drawing was hidden and passed it to the student next to them. Students had another minute to draw, now in the middle section. At the end of the minute, they refolded the paper so both drawings were hidden and passed it to the student next to them. Students then had one last minute to draw, now in the bottom section. Once all sections were filled in, students unfolded their paper to reveal how all the parts came together to make one drawing!

4th grade

5th grade 

4th grade

5th grade

The Big Reveal!!

4th grade

5th grade

4th grade

4th grade

5th grade

5th grade

Our game was inspired by a collaborative drawing approach invented in 1925 called exquisite corpse. We ended our tour by looking at an exquisite corpse drawing made by Arp, his wife, and two of their friends. Their exquisite corpse also incorporated torn pieces of paper glued onto the drawing. Marcel Jean drew in the top section, Oscar Dominguez drew in the second section, Arp collaged paper pieces in the third section, and his wife Sophie Taeuber-Arp collaged in the bottom section. Just as our Mad-lib during the previous stop used chance to fill in missing words, the completed group drawing was completely unplanned and unknown until the students unfolded their paper at the end of our game.

Exquisite Corpse; collaborative work by (from top to bottom) Marcel Jean, Oscar Dominguez, Jean Arp, Sophie Taueber-Arp