GROW at the Nasher: What's the Story? Tour, Part One

We started this year with a tour exploring the idea of "What's the Story?" During our tour, we explored the work of artists Ingar Dragset and Michael Elmgreen, who are featured in our current exhibition Elmgreen & Dragset: Sculptures. Together, Elmgreen & Dragset create sculptures that encourage us to imagine possible stories, or narratives.

Vocabulary:
narrative / la narrativa

scale / la escala

context / el contexto

reflective / brillante

interpretation / la interpretación

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We explored the questions below at our first tour stop.

Couple by Elmgreen & Dragset

How would you describe this artwork? Are these two items identical? Why or why not?

Do you recognize these objects? They are diving boards. Could you tell these were diving boards right away or did it take a little while? That could be because they’re taken out of context. Context is the place or situation where something usually occurs. The normal context of a diving board is next to a pool, and horizontal instead of vertical.

This sculpture is called Couple, Fig. 21. What is a couple? The word couple usually refers to two people who are considered as a pair – married couple, a couple dancing, playing games, etc.

What sorts of things do you see in pairs? Name some examples of pairs in nature. What are manmade examples? 

What are some items that would work in a different version of Couple, Fig. 21?

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Human Scale (Bent Pool) by Elmgreen & Dragset

How does this sculpture relate or connect to Couple, Fig. 21? What does it remind you of? Could you swim in this pool?

This sculpture is called Human Scale (Bent Pool). What does the word scale mean? The word scale describes when you compare the size of one thing to another.

Human scale is something made in a size that is useful to people. You could say that this sculpture is human scale (it is about our height) or it is not human scale (it is not a size that we could use).

The pool is also taken out of context! When was the last time you went swimming at an art museum? :)