Julie Mehretu: Celebrating Black History (in the making!)

Post & Lesson Contributed by Ally Bernstein, Teacher Assistant

Today, we introduced the work of Julie Mehretu, an outstanding and ambitious contemporary artist from Ethiopia. Born in 1970, Julia Mehretu grew up in both Ethiopia and Michigan, and spent time studying art in Senegal. Her art is a whirlwind of shape and color that both creates space and breaks the illusion of depth. Her work, which is investigative and exploratory, reflects her experience of the cross-cultural urban landscape.  She currently lives and works in New York City.  

Jessica

We began by viewing paintings in Julie Mehretu’s Stadia series. Students zoomed in on different parts in these enormous works and identified specific elements. We saw marks that looked like flags, fluffy animals, motorcycle tracks, rain, airplanes, and many other different objects. Some students likened the entire composition to a city. We also watched a short Art 21 video in which Mehretu described her process of creating a visual language. The video also showed Mehretu adding paint to a huge drawing – she had to stand on a ladder to work on it!

Jordan

For our own project, we borrowed the idea of creating a visual representation for events and history. We first created maps of the Beye School playground, an area that we all knew well enough to recall it from memory. These maps were colorfully collaged, with shapes representing familiar structures. We then used stickers and markers on top of the collage as a specific reference to something about the time that we had spent on the playground. For example, some students represented places where they had made new friends, and others showed where they had played games. 

Norah

Students were encouraged to be expressive with the marks, and the results were impressive. Come view these beautiful Mehretu-inspired maps of the playground, on display outside the main office!

Theo

Jadan

Jadon

Shlok

Shlok

Joey

Joey

Norah

Emily

 

Mark Bradford: Celebrating Black History (in the making!)

Post & Lesson Contributed by Ally Bernstein, Teacher Assistant

Mark Bradford is a well-known contemporary artist from Los Angeles, whose work is relevant to race, class, and site. First, we presented a video of Bradford playing basketball in a Lakers “uniform” that was redesigned to mimic the skirt of an antebellum gown. This enormous skirt made him trip and fall while he tried to shoot baskets, but he always made the shot. His video, which concerned obstacles, success, gender, race, and history, was a great segue into the part of his work that inspired our project for today.

Beye Discovery Student Artwork

Much of Mark Bradford’s work involves layering. He layers, for example, end papers used for bleaching hair, a reference to time spent in his mother’s salon as a child. He also layers signs that he finds, which tell about the neighborhoods that he explores in Los Angeles. Through layering and removing (sometimes with a heavy duty sander), he is able to create beautiful works that sparkle and suggest that the past is part of the present.

 

Joey

We used cardboard and magazine pages to mirror Bradford’s working process, as he often makes use of found materials. Students used watered down glue and carefully layered texts and images from these magazines. When the pieces were dry, students then removed some layers, allowing the buried images to resurface.

The result of the process was resplendent, with rough-hewn surfaces full of depth, color, and texture.

Norah

Leila

Julian

Anika

Lucy

Joseph

Theo

Shlok

Joseph

Anika

Emory

To view the finished collages, please visit our display outside the main office ~ you will be as excited as we are by the results : )

Picasso and Cubism

Post and Lesson Contributed by Ally Berstein, Teacher Assistant

Today’s lesson focused on Picasso and cubism, which he invented with the help of artist Georges Braque. It’s easy to look at Picasso’s work and surmise that he used cubism because he was unable to paint realistically, but if one examines his entire oeuvre, this is clearly not the case. Picasso had classical training in the arts and was able to create incredibly realistic images. Because of this training, he had the confidence to break with tradition and to invent new ways to represent what we see.  

Joseph

To help our students understand how to “see” an object in a new way, we looked at four Picasso sketches of a bull – the first one was illustrated realistically and conveyed the animal’s weight and mass. The second sketch was simplified to suggest the strength of the animal and the third sketch hinted at a skeletal structure, relying on line only. The fourth representation was the simplest of all the sketches, a beautiful contour outlining the edges of the bull, yet perhaps the most expressive. This helped us to understand that not every detail is necessary to convey a figure.

Joel

Cubism asks the viewer to see a flattened view of an object/figure and to consider how it might look from every side. This means that certain features on a face may end up in unexpected places. Ms. Bernstein demonstrated the idea with a plush toy squid, which she first rendered realistically. She also drew the squid in the cubist style, constantly turning it, seeking to convey all the dimensions on the flat drawing surface. Students were very eager to draw their own stuffed animals in this manner and excitedly dove into this project!

Ms. Bernstein demonstrating a realistic and cubist approach

First, through careful observation, the children made a realistic drawing followed by a breathtaking cubist drawing. I was so thrilled with the enthusiasm and the resulting artwork – I felt that Pablo Picasso himself would’ve been proud. This was definitely a favorite day in Beye Discovery for both the students and teachers (and that’s saying a lot!). Take a look at the photos and see for yourself!

Anika

Jackson

Joey

Shlok

Joseph

Dexter

Emory

Heidi

Peyton

Lucy

Lucy

Wilson

Anika

Carson

Jadon

Dexter

Emory

Heidi

Jordan

Joey (2 representational drawings)

Jackson

Elise

Ginger

Elise