Actividades para trabajar en las clases con Arte recomendados por el Museo de Arte

Moderno de Nueva York

1. Create a Cityscape or Landscape with Mood

Choose a location in your city, town, or neighborhood or some place you have traveled to that resonates
with you emotionally. Visit the site and photograph it during different times of the day (or use photos
from your travels). Choose your favorite photograph and create a drawing or painting from it. How does
your drawing or painting convey the mood of your chosen location and the way it makes you feel?

2. Write a Descriptive Essay

Visit MoMA’s Online Collection and find a landscape painting from 1880 to 1910 that conveys a mood.
Write about how the artist is able to convey mood, atmosphere, or spiritual or psychological sensations
in this landscape. Share your writing with a friend.

3. Postcard from a Painting

Choose a painting from the image carousel on this page and write a “postcard” from the perspective of a
visitor to the landscape it depicts. Include a description of the landscape and the mood that the artist
conveys in the way he represented it. As you write, imagine what it would be lik e to spend a day there.

1. Host a Salon

Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso would have been invited to author Gertrude Stein’s Parisian home for
salons, social gatherings to share ideas and works of art.

Create either a real or mock salon by inviting three to five friends to share a poem, a work of art, a
song/piece of music, or a dance. At the salon, share your pieces with one another and discuss them.

2. Exploring Perspectives through Photography

Perspective is an important concept in art and in life. Now it is your turn to explore a perspective of an
artistic subject of your choice. Arrange a still life of either your most or least favorite objects.
Take photographs of the objects from various angles and perspectives. Print out your images. Cut up
the images and paste them onto a separate sheet of paper, creating a two-dimensional collage that
depicts the subject from multiple viewpoints.

Once you have a final collage, title your piece. Write a short caption that explains your artistic intention.
Share with a friend and discuss your intention.

1. Document Your City with Photographs

Make. Photograph your town or city, looking for interesting architecture, landscapes, monuments, or
street scenes. During your hunt for interesting scenes, be sure to pay attention to how
you frame and crop your image to compose the most visually rich image possible. Think about Eugène
 Atget’s project of recording “documents” rather than making art. Are your photos more like art or
documents?

2. Create Your Own Mini World’s Fair

The 1889 Exposition Universelle, or World’s Fair, took place in Paris and showcased new innovations,
recent geographical and scientific discoveries, and works of art. World’s Fairs, or Expos, as they are
often called today, still take place and are hosted by various countries.

Conceptualize your own mini World’s Fair. Come up with a list of themes or ideas your fair should
represent (i.e. technology, innovation, environment, politics). Include photographs, drawings,
or replicas of important existing inventions (or drawings or models of your own inventions) that you
would like to showcase in your fair. Consider how your environment influences how you think, work, live,
and play.

3. Design and Advertise a City Improvement

The Paris Métropolitain (subway) improved life in the city by making transportation cleaner and faster.
Hector Guimard’s gates helped advertise the Métro, making it the most popular way to travel around
Paris.

Step one: Think about something you would like to do to improve your ci ty, neighborhood, or
school. Sketch it out.

Step two: Sell the idea in an advertisement of your own design. Think about ways to entice people to
use your improvement. What slogans could you use? What celebrities or images would you
include? Look at projects by the Center for Urban Pedagogy for inspiration.

1. Compare and Contrast Two Portraits

Choose two portraits to study in MoMA’s online collection. Make a list of everything you see in each
portrait. Organize your notes and write a one-page summary of what you noticed about these two
portraits.

2. Create a Symbolic Self-Portrait

Write 10 words that describe you. Choose one or two of those words and come up with a symbol that
represents who you are. Make a drawing, painting, or collage of yourself, incorporating your symbol
into your composition.

What did you learn about symbols? Did you find it easy or difficult to incorporate a symbol into your self-
portrait?

3. Make a Portrait of Someone You Know

 Select a person who would be an interesting subject for a portrait. Write a few words to describe his or
her personality. What would you like to communicate about the person to the viewer? Think about
the costume, expression, pose, and background that would best communicate this information.

Make a drawing, painting, or collage of the person. After you’ve finished, reflect on what you found
challenging, fun, or intriguing about making this portrait. If you could do the portrait again, wha t would
you do differently?

1. The Cult of Celebrity in Promoting Culture

Think of the ways in which popular culture is disseminated in your environment. Find a few images of a
celebrity selling either a product or an idea. How does this celebrity help endorse the product or idea
more than a non-celebrity would?

Write a short essay about the role of celebrity in promoting popular culture. Think about the various
outlets through which celebrities can cultivate their image and promote their ideas. What is the role of
media (television, newspapers and magazines, the internet, social media platforms) in creating the idea
of celebrity? Share your essay with a friend.

2. Analyze an Advertisement and Create Your Own

Find three advertisements that appeal to you. Try to answer the following questions for each one:

Who is represented in the advertisement?

Who is the target audience?

Which of the following persuasive techniques does each advertisement rely on?
Visual metaphors
Catchy phrases
Mood/tone/emotion
Endorsements
Celebrities
Music/sound

Create an advertisement for something in your own life, keeping in mind all of the persuasive techniques
above. How did deconstructing these three advertisements help you better understand the methods of
advertisers?