GROW at the Nasher: Naum Gabo

Friday, May 15, 2020

Talking Heads Tour, Part Two

We visited this sculpture at our next stop of the Talking Heads tour. How is it different from the first two we saw? How is it similar?

Naum Gabo, Constructed Head No. 2, 1916 (enlargement 1975)

First, we copied the sculpture's pose.

3rd grade

5th grade

The third graders also sketched the sculpture.

3rd grade

The artist Naum Gabo used flat pieces of stainless steel to make this sculpture. Gabo was interested in exploring new materials, especially materials that had recently been invented. At the time that he made this, stainless steel was not considered an art material.  Which sculpture from our last stop was also made of stainless steel?

5th grade

Gabo often made many versions of the same subject.  There are three smaller versions of Constructed Head No. 2 made of cardboard, galvanized iron, and plastic (one is in the Dallas Museum of Art's collection).  He also enlarged his idea – in other words, he took the small version and made a larger one. In fact, he made four large versions. The Nasher's sculpture is the only one made of stainless steel.

The third graders imagined posing for a sculpture again, this time showcasing more of their spirited personalities!

3rd grade

Before moving on to our next stop, the fifth graders passed around a raised drawing of a different sculpture. They took turns running their fingertips over the drawing without looking at the picture. Then, they looked across the gallery and pointed to the sculpture they would visit next, based on what they felt in the drawing.

5th grade

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