Museum of Modern Art 2/6

Crumpled paper from Sanja Ivekovic: Sweet Violence

This week, MTS met at the Museum of Modern Art. With many of us recently affiliated with their teen programs (including Marit!), it was an exciting to be back in the beautiful Cullman Education and Research Center. We took a quick look through the atrium space and the recently updated contemporary galleries. The atrium is currently occupied with the Sanja Ivekovic: Sweet Violence show. Centered is a shrine like sculpture topped with a gold piece, and scattered across the grey tiled floors are crumpled pieces of paper.

We strolled through the contemporary galleries in search for the Felix Gonzalez-Torres pieces, which evolved from a corner pile of candies into an entire room of silver wrapped pineapple treats. How could we resist? Toward the end of our exploration we found the Keith Haring piece. Absolutely stunning. We cannot wait to see his show at the Brooklyn Museum. At the smack middle of the room is Three Ball Total Equilibrium Tank by Jeff Koon, which we saw in the Hennessy Youngman video How to Make An Art this summer.

Walking through the Keith Haring and Jeff Koon pieces

Unfortunately our adventures were cut short by the museum's 5:30pm close time. We gathered back in the classroom to meet with Calder Zwicky, who conducts the teen and community outreach programs at MoMA. Calder described the teen programs in three tiers:

1. Art Underground - or simply teen night. These happen every other Friday (next one on 2/17). They are at a first come first serve basis and all you need to attend is a student ID. It is open to all teens in New York City. 
2. In The Making - Requires an application. Studio based classes which generally are designed to work with a special exhibition or a portion of the museum's permanent collection. 
3. Museum Studies/Art Conservation/Cross Museum Collective - Required application. Alumni only programs which are much more involved in the behind-the-scenes of museums.

All info on these programs can be found here.

Calder also runs community programs which work with organizations around the city, such as Big Brothers Big Sisters, to provide an internship style opportunity to help these specific teens learn about the job opportunities in the art world.

The last portion of our session was all about the National Art Education Association Conference on February 29th. We will be giving a presentation on what we do, what we've found, and how to use technology to promote outreach to teens. Our target goals to are present:

• What are the miconceptions of teens and museums?
• What social networking means to teens? How is it used?
• How to take a goal oriented approach to social networking with a teen audience?
• Tutorials on setting up/expanded social network footprint. 

We are extremely excited to be presenting at these conference in front of art educators from around the nation. We hope that the information culminated since our summer sessions will be able to help some programs expand through media use.

Follow our Twitter, like our Facebook for #teensinmuseums, updates on teen programs and art!

-MTS Team