Interpretive Dance by Texas School Children at Cathy Breslaw's Exhibition: Color, Space and Beauty

Color, Space and Beauty : An Exhibition of the Work of Cathy Breslaw at the Patterson - Appleton Center for Visual Arts, Denton, Texas

Exhibition Director, Caroline Holley shared a video and photos. She explains below how the classes of school children participated in Cathy Breslaw's exhibition "Color Space Beauty" at the Patterson-Appleton Center for Visual Arts in Denton Texas....on view thru December 30th:

  See video here:

"Just a bit of insight into the tours... some of the docents have had the students walk through your show and sketch their interpretation of the individual pieces while listing descriptive words that come to their mind as they view each piece. From there, they created an interpretive dance based on the descriptive words, this is the video I included. Each docent has a different approach, for example, one docent had their group write a haiku about their favorite piece. I think it has been a great experience for everyone involved!

Finally, you’ll see some photos of the interactive work stations we created for the kids this year where they have a chance to create their own fiber creations which were inspired by your “Carousel” piece. Each class creates a base and the next group adds layers to it. A local furniture store donated thousands of left over swatches for us to use – the kids have loved it!" (Caroline Holley, Exhibition Director)

The Art of Music, a Multi-Media Exhibition at The San Diego Museum of Art

The Art of Music

San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego

Article by Cathy Breslaw

www.cathybreslaw.com

John Baldassari       "Beethoven's Trumpet(with Ear) Opus #127 "      2007  

Upon entering the exhibition The Art of Music  viewers are met with a huge wall sculpture by contemporary artist John Baldessari.  It consists of an enormous white-painted human ear with a large trumpet jutting out from it.  I took it as a sign that we should ‘listen carefully’, and pay as much attention to what we hear, as to what we see. At an art museum we are accustomed to focusing mostly on what we see – and The Art of Music challenges us to both listen and see simultaneously.  In the over 200 works of art presented, there are a combination of paintings, drawings, sculptures, videos, sound art, installations and musical instruments covering artists and music-makers over several hundred years of time.  This highly ambitious exhibition drawing from a variety of time periods, artists and musicians, is organized into three areas: Musician as Motif, Social Intersections of  Art and Music and Formal Connections of Art and Music. The Musician as Motif examines the motif of the musician and the symbolic nature of this figure in Greek terracotta figures, Chinese metalwork, and Western portraits of celebrated musicians. Through these we will present a visual history of the meanings associated with musicians, muses, and the individual artist at different moments and in different cultural contexts. The second section, Social Intersections of Art and Music, considers the social function of music and its public and private rituals. This spans depictions of musical performances at the court and in the theater, designs for the opera and ballet, and works portraying musical scenes of everyday life. Formal Connections of Art and Music, the third explores representations of the sounds, emotions, and sights of music, from Indian Ragamala paintings to modern and contemporary interpretations of the colors and forms evoked by music.

The works come from a combination of the museum’s permanent collection, loans from major museums and private collections. Art works from Pablo Picasso, Kandinsky, Chuck Close, Rufino Tamayo, and Henri Matisse are among the most prominent artists presented. On view is a harpsichord, lyre, violin, guitar, whistles, and Beethoven’s Fidelio from 1814, “Er Sterbel” manuscript with autograph. When viewers approach each musical instrument, there are sensors  causing music to ‘play’ a musical piece using the particular instrument viewed.  Throughout the many rooms of the exhibition, faint sounds of musical pieces can be heard adding a wonderful back-drop to the visual art pieces.  We become aware of how visual art pieces contain movement and conjure up unique sounds and that sounds from musical instruments initiate some natural visual symbols and colors.

The final art piece we experience in the last room of the exhibition is contemporary artist Tristan Perich’s “Microtonal Wall”. This wall work arranged on a 25 foot long grid, is comprised of 1500 tiny speakers, each playing its own microtonal frequency over four octaves. When a viewer gets very close to each speaker, you can hear sounds separately but when further away the sounds all seem to play at once.

The Art of Music educates, entertains and challenges us -  also reminding us of the interconnections of art and music and how each can inform the other, and stimulate our curiosity and creativity.  The show is on view through February 7^th.

Arthur Dove    Fog Horns    oil on canvas     1929

Fernando Botero   Dancing in Columbia   oil on canvas    1980