Modern Art makes me want to rock out!

Arcadia has been taking art classes at Southwest Illinois College and really loves them. One day she had some free time and did a multi-color scribble that her teacher really liked. The teacher liked it so much she decided that all of the kids should have a joint project and make a Jackson Pollock style piece. Arcadia says it's called "dip painting". So they had a lot of fun and each of the kids brought home a few chunks of the piece.

JACKSON POLLOCK

A few weeks ago I heard on NPR that the SLAM (St. Louis Art Museum) was having a Jackson Pollock display with some other contemporaries. Knowing that it was a kid-friendly theme of paintings I figured it was a good exhibit to take the kids to.
The exhibit is called Action/Abstraction: Pollock, de Kooning, and American Art, 1940-1976.


WILLEM de KOONING

Our kids were super funny in different ways. We got Arcadia the audio tour so that she could hear what was being said about each piece. So she was walking around with her iPod listening intently with a very serious look on her face and she kept walking off to study each piece on her own. As if somehow she wanted to appear aloof and distance herself from her parents who are so uncool (really, Arcadia, how many parents bring their 7 year old to a modern art exhibit? she is so world weary sometimes). We, and a number of other viewers were just giggling behind her back.


JASPER JOHNS

And then there was Matthijas. We haven't taken Matthijas to a museum in a long time. Mostly because it has been disastrous in the past. But, I guess we were feeling gutsy, so we strapped him down in the stroller, pinned on his "I'm not naughty, I'm Autistic" pin (which is SO incredibly helpful with strangers I wish I'd had some sooner) and we went. So, if you hadn't know about this era of abstract art before I hope by now with these few pictures you have an idea.

KENNETH NOLAND

I wasn't sure where to start with him on art, so I picked the most basic thing: color. We started at the Pollock piece and I asked his "what colors do you see?" and he named them all off. So we moved onto form :"are the lines squiggly or straight? are they skinny or fat? is it pretty or ugly?" He determined it was pretty. So we moved on. As we went from picture to picture he would either tell me the colors or shapes. But there were some he just hated, and some he loved. He really liked the Jackson Pollock, not so much the Willem de Kooning, loved the Kenneth Noland, and could tell me all the colors he saw in this painting by Ad Reinhardt, which was amazing.


AD REINHARDT

It was really funny as I strolled Matthijas from piece to piece in the installation because he had such strong opinions. He would either really like the painting or statue and start telling me about it or he would shriek and howl and we would have to walk away. We had a few people just laughing like crazy over this saying "Every one's a critic" but generally agreeing with his assessment on whether a piece was good or mediocre, or just bad.


MARK ROTHKO

Jasper slept through most of it, but when he was awake really enjoyed the bright colors and bold shapes, and at the end of the abstract art display we went downstairs to see the mummies which the kids always love to see. We were surprised that we had such a positive experience at the art museum, that Matthijas didn't destroy any priceless works of art, and I am excited to work more with him on art since he seemed to enjoy it and had such strong reactions to what he saw.