FOR FURTHER CONSIDERATION
After completing the lessons in this guide, ask your students to make a list of any questions they may still have about one or more of the artists. Organize their questions into categories so that they can conduct their own research. Categories can include biographical questions; questions about a specific work of art, such as why the artist made it and what types of materials the artist used; and questions regarding historical events at a certain time during the artist’s life.
Visit The Museum of Modern Art and identify an artwork that was included in this guide. Ask your students to consider the following questions: Now that you are looking at the actual work, think about its size and scale. How would you compare the work in the Museum with the reproduction you saw in the classroom? Are there any details you see now that you didn’t notice earlier? Have your ideas about this work changed? Why or why not? Consider the works of art installed around the one you are viewing. How would you compare the works? Why do you think they were chosen to be exhibited together? Note: Please visit www.moma.org/collection to confirm that works are on view.
Send your students on a Web Quest to MoMA’s Online Collection. Ask students to research other works by the artists included in this guide. Students may also want to visit Red Studio, A MoMA Site for Teens (http://redstudio.moma.org/), for online activities, teen-led interviews of artists and curators about issues in art and design, and the site’s Talk Back bulletin board.
Research a Photographic Archive
Photographic archives can provide opportunities for researching unexplored material. Ask your students to identify a local archive. It could be at their school, a local library, a municipal organization, a community or religious center, or even at a local company. Ask them to write a short report on the archive. How is it organized? Is there a photo archivist or someone who organizes or oversees the collection? Ask them to describe and analyze several photographs they discovered during the course of their research.
Photomontage, Collage, and Printmaking
Photography has played an important role in the art mediums of photomontage, collage, and printmaking. Many artists have turned these techniques into a tool for social commentary. Ask your students to research how and why one of the following artists used these techniques: John Heartfield, Gustav Klucis, Aleksandr Rodchenko, El Lissitzky, Hannah Höch, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Barbara Kruger, and Martha Rosler.