970.925.8050590 North Mill Street Aspen, Colorado 81611aspenartmuseum.org

Mark Manders, Ramble Room Chair (detail), 2010. Courtesy of the artist and Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp. Photo: Mark Manders

Exhibition in a Box

Teachers’ GuideFor School Tours and Classroom Presentations

About the Aspen Art Museum

MISSIONThe Aspen Art Museum is a noncollecting institution presenting the newest, most important evolutions in international contemporary art. Our innovative and timely exhibitions, education and public programs, immersive activities, and community happenings actively engage audiences in thought-provoking experiences of art, culture, and society.

HISTORYThe Aspen Art Museum is a kunsthalle, or noncollecting museum for contemporary art, located in the historic mountain community of Aspen, Colorado. It is one of only four art institutions in Colorado accredited by the American Association of Museums and the only museum on the Western Slope with this accreditation.

Founded in 1979, the Aspen Art Museum continues to be at the center of Aspen’s renowned cultural community, which includes the Aspen Music Festival and Aspen Institute. In addition to exhibiting contemporary art, the AAM is committed to public and educational programming for communities in the Roaring Fork Valley (Aspen, Basalt, Carbondale, Redstone, Marble, and Glenwood Springs) and the surrounding region (New Castle, Parachute, Rifle, Grand Junction, Avon, Eagle, Vail, Crested Butte, and Leadville). Through free public programs and guided tours of museum exhibitions, collaborations with other organizations, and art outreach programs in regional schools, the museum provides a wide variety of community-based programming.

In July 2005 the AAM welcomed Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson as its Director and Chief Curator. Among her accomplishments, Zuckerman Jacobson has fostered the introduction of collaborations with companies like The Aspen Skiing Company to bring contemporary art to new audiences in innovative ways. She has reimagined the AAM Distinguished Artist-in-Residence program, launched the Aspen Art Press, founded a special annual artist honoree prize (the Aspen Award for Art), launched the AAM’s award-winning local television program Art Matters, and created Exhibition in a Box.

CONTACTAspen Art Museum590 North Mill StreetAspen, Colorado, 81611Phone: 970.925.8050Fax: 970.925.8054www.aspenartmuseum.org

For questions and comments please contact:

Genna CollinsYouth Programs ManagerE-mail: gcollins@aspenartmuseum.orgPhone: 970.925.8050 ext. 24Fax: 970.925.8054

Rebecca MirskyInterim Education DirectorE-mail: rmirsky@aspenartmuseum.orgPhone: 970.925.8050 ext. 33Fax: 970.925.8054

GALLERY HOURS Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.Thursday, 10 a.m.–7 p.m.Sunday, Noon–6 p.m.Closed Monday & major holidays

ADMISSION FREECourtesy of John and Amy Phelan

Exhibition in a Box

One of the Aspen Art Museum’s most relevant and successful community-based programs is Exhibition in a Box (EiaB), an outreach program that offers elementary students a curriculum-based classroom introduction to contemporary art and a behind-the-scenes glimpse into how an art museum functions using current AAM exhibitions as a starting point. Following the classroom visit, the program continues with an all-expenses-paid visit to the museum, where the students will tour the facility, meet museum staff, and see the work of artists discussed in the classroom.

EiaB presents museums as a cultural resource for everyone and introduces contemporary art as the expression of living artists who share and respond to the world we all inhabit. With this and other education activities for all ages, the Aspen Art Museum is committed to creating lifelong learners who continue to develop skills to better decode, interpret, and navigate the highly visual, aural, and material realities of the 21st century.

The program is offered free of charge to all public and private elementary schools located within a two-hour drive from Aspen. The program premiered during the 2007–08 school year with a focus on third-grade classrooms in the Roaring Fork Valley. Based on the success of its first year, Exhibition in a Box has been expanded to Eagle, Garfield, Gunnison, and Lake Counties. Due to Colorado’s unique topography, many of these schools are located in isolated locations with limited access to cultural resources. Exhibition in a Box responds by bringing the cultural resources of the Aspen Art Museum to them.

MEMBERSHIPAs thanks for their participation in EiaB, teachers will receive an Aspen Art Museum Individual Membership ($35 value). Benefits include:

• Subscription to AAM’s Member’s Magazine• 10% discount on summer and winter workshops for children• 10% discount on AAM SHOP purchases• Invitations to all exhibition openings• Special viewing hours and events • Online educational resources

TRANSPORTATION REIMBURSEMENTThe AAM will reimburse round-trip mileage for EiaB museum visits. When scheduling your tour please request a transportation reimbursement form.

Following the field trip, return the form with a transportation invoice or receipt along with a breakdown of the associated costs on school letterhead. Reimbursement will be issued within four weeks from the date of submission.

FEEDBACK As an educational resource for teachers, the AAM welcomes feedback regarding the classroom presentation and your trip to the museum. Please let us know what worked well and what might improve your next EiaB experience.

After receiving an evaluation form in the mail, please fill it out and mail or fax it back to the AAM at your convenience. Your evaluation is crucial to helping the Education Department strengthen the program for future years. We also appreciate receiving thank you letters or student artwork made in conjunction with your visit. We hope you enjoy your visit and greatly look forward to working with you and your students.

There are countless benefits to including art in the classroom. Exhibition in a Box is tied to the National Standards of Learning and focuses on object-based learning, visual literacy, critical thinking, and the creative process. The program offers each student the opportunity for the personal reflection that takes place as a part of viewing art as well as the benefits of discussing art in a group setting, which allows for better listening, thinking, and concentration. The program also offers teachers the opportunity to work with their students on the following:

• Understanding the arts as a universal language• Using art as a way of communicating feeling without writing or speaking• Talking about art to promote discovery and alternative modes of learning• Learning to see an object, problem, or situation in multiple ways• Looking at art to trigger the imagination

When visiting the Aspen Art Museum, please remember that you are in a space that encourages the contemplation and quiet discussion of art by all visitors. A few guidelines to remember:

• Raise your hand if you have a question or something you would like to share.• Speak quietly in the galleries using your inside voice.• Stay at safe distance from the artwork and do not touch the artwork unless you are given permission to do so.• Please walk and do not run in the museum.• Enjoy food and beverages before entering the museum, or save them until after the tour has ended and you have exited the gallery. • Have fun!

Take a moment to prepare your class for their visit by asking them a few questions about their experiences with art and museums. When you return, share the postvisit questions to encourage students to think and talk about what they saw at the AAM.

PREvISIT• Where is Aspen? Have you been there?• Have you ever been to a museum before? If so, what type?• Will this be your first time visiting the Aspen Art Museum? If not, what kind of art did you see on your last visit?• What do you consider to be art?• Where and how do you usually see art displayed?• Have you ever made a sculpture before? If so, what was that experience like?• Not all sculptures are the same. What are some ways they can be different from one another?

POSTvISIT• Which work in the Mark Manders exhibition was your favorite? What did you like about it?• During the classroom presentation you were shown images of Manders’s sculptures. When in the AAM galleries, were you surprised by how they looked in person?• What was your experience like in the museum galleries?• After seeing the exhibition, will you look at objects in a new way? If so, why?• Are you now inspired to make a sculpture yourself? What would you create?

MAKE ART A PART OF YOUR CURRICULUM

MUSEUM MANNERS

MAKING THE MOST OF YOUR vISIT

Exhibition in a Box

Current Exhibition

ABOUT THE ARTIST MARK MANDERS

Mark Manders was born in the city of Volkel, the Netherlands, in 1968. He is a Dutch installation artist who works with a variety of materials: hair, dust, teabags, sugar, sand, metal, wood, and clay, just to name a few.

Manders’s poetic works play with the tension between present and past, the mysterious and familiar. While many of the installations you’ll see incorporate familiar objects (tables, chairs, cups), these objects are handmade by Manders and sometimes altered in size just enough to make them seem unusual. Sculptures that appear to be made of wet clay are in fact painted bronze. Manders’s works also seem to belong to no specific time or place. His sculptural figures reference various locations and periods of history (ancient Greece, for example), yet cannot be pinned down to any one. Even the newspapers in the installations are his creations and refer to no actual events.

Manders speaks to his viewers, as do his works, using nontraditional forms of communication. When visiting the AAM Manders explained, “My job is to think about objects. As an artist you leave something behind. . . . I put thoughts in objects and people can read them. With art you can focus thoughts and it is a miracle that we have a place [the museum] to do that.”

Manders uses objects as a kind of language and that opens up new possibilities for thinking and seeing familiar things in new ways. Although he started his career by working with language, Manders realized objects can speak in a broader, more universal way that words often cannot. Part of the challenge of using words, he explains, is that they don’t always accurately express the way we think. Creativity is very complex. In some cases, Manders thinks about his works very quickly and in short word combinations. A large and complex work can originate with the words chair, dog, and clay. Some objects have taken him as little as one month to create and others as long as 16 years.

Manders remembers being six years old and building airplanes out of matchsticks. It was then that he realized the power of objects and his ability to put something special into the world through them. Though he originally thought of his objects as inventions, it wasn’t until he was 18 years old that he first understood himself as an artist and pursued fine art as a profession. At that age, in 1986, Manders conceived a “super moment,” in which all of his artworks were created at once. Ever since, he has been engaged in what he calls his Self-Portrait as a Building, an ongoing and monumental project you can see a part of at the AAM. This project has come to define his overall practice, which encompasses what he calls “big kid toys,” ghostly presences, frozen time, Dutch still-life paintings, cultural artifacts, archeological treasures, alien machinery, gravitational fields, domestic animals, three-dimensional photographs, and an utterly unique poetic language expressed through the things he imagines and then manifests.

Mark Manders, Ramble Room Chair, 2010. Courtesy of the artist and Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp.

Selected Works in the Exhibition

Mark Manders, Anthropological Trophy, 2010. Courtesy the artist; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York; and Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp.

left: Mark Manders, Obtrusive Head, 2010. Courtesy the artist; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York; and Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp. Installation view at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, 2010. Photo: Brian Forrest.

right: Mark Manders, Two Interconnected Houses, 2010. Courtesy the artist; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York; and Zeno X, Antwerp. Installation view at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, 2010. Photo: Brian Forrest.

Connection to ExhibitionThird-Grade Standards

• Evaluating the visual information found in the exhibition, students can think of the artist’s works as historical artifacts. Although they were made recently, the works reference different periods of history, and students can evaluate historical sources to decode the works’ purposes and contexts.

• Information from the past is used to make connections to the present and inform decisions we make today. For example, older technologies continue to evolve and affect the present. What important developments, people, or events might influence Manders and how he makes his work?

• By reading and interpreting geographic tools, students can locate the Netherlands, the country in which Manders was born and raised.

Standard 1Develop an understanding of how people view, construct, and interpret history.

Standard 2 Analyze key historical periods and patterns of change over time within and across nations and cultures.

Standard 3Develop spatial understanding, perspectives, and personal connections to the world.

HISTORY

Archeologists and art historians examine objects to learn more about themselves, understand other cultures, and help construct history. As a writing exercise, have students establish a situation at an archeological dig and organize a naturally unfolding sequence of events that begins with discovering one of Manders’s works of art. They can choose an object, pretend this is the first time it has ever been seen, describe the details of the object, and explain what the discovered artifact tells us about the person who made it and the time and place from which it came.

• Knowing that many of the Earth’s resources can be conserved, recycled, or depleted, students can think about which of Earth’s resources Manders uses most. Students can discuss if they consider Manders’s work a type of recycling. If so, what elements of recycling does the work incorporate (does he conserve resources by using preexisting wood and metal?)

• Students can design, plan, and conduct a variety of simple investigations (for example: formulate a testable question, state a hypothesis, make systematic observations, develop and communicate logical conclusions based on evidence) to determine how Manders makes his sculptures. For example, considering the materials used, students can hypothesize how one heavy piece of bronze is balancing on a very light and skinny rope.

Standard 1Students know and understand the processes and interactions of Earth’s systems and the structure and dynamics of Earth and other objects in space.

Standard 2Students apply the processes of scientific investigation and design and conduct, communicate about, and evaluate such investigations.

SCIENCE

OPTIONAL ACTIvITIES

Connection to ExhibitionThird-Grade Standards

• Students can apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding language found on the wall labels and text panels, used in the classroom presentation, and included in the glossary section of this guide.

• When students view the works at the AAM, they will recognize that different sources may have different points of view and will assess points of view using fairness, relevance, and breadth of reference. There are no wrong answers when talking about art—all opinions are valid.

• Using complete sentences, grammatically correct language, and the appropriate volume and pitch for the purpose and audience, students can recount their experience at the AAM with relevant facts and descriptive details, speaking clearly at an understandable pace.

• During both the classroom presentation and the museum tour, students will participate and engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions, asking questions on the information presented and linking their comments to the remarks of others. Students will explain their own ideas while interacting with others by sharing knowledge, stories, and interests.

• Visual artists, like authors, also brainstorm before they create. Manders often starts his creative process with a list of words that describe a particular work. Like writers, artists also present points of view to inform, entertain, and communicate a variety of ideas using images as well as words.

Standard 1Increasing word understanding, word use, and word relationships builds vocabulary.

Standard 2 Inferences and points of view exist.

Standard 3Use language appropriate for purpose and audience.

Standard 4Collaborate effectively as group members or leaders who listen actively and respectfully pose thoughtful questions, acknowledge the ideas of others, and contribute ideas to further the group’s attainment of an objective.

Standard 5A writing process is used to plan, draft, and write in a variety of literary genres.

READING, WRITING, COMUNICATING

OPTIONAL ACTIvITIES

1. Write a poem about one of Manders’s works using descriptive and figurative language.

2. In response to Manders’s works, students can write opinion pieces, supporting their point of view with arguments and evidence. For example, students can introduce the artist and state their opinion on the work, brainstorm ideas, create an organizational structure that provides reasons that support their opinions, and then compose a conclusion.

Connection to ExhibitionThird-Grade Standards

• Students will articulate commonalities seen in the visual information found at the AAM and identify patterns found in the works. After the museum visit, students will understand that critical processes of observing, interpreting, and evaluating lead to informed judgments regarding the merits of a work of art.

• Students will learn to “read” a work of art, hypothesizing and discussing artist intent and mood. In addition, students will use multisensory information to construct visual narratives.

• Understanding that art can be unpredictable, at the AAM students will develop a variety of ways to respond to surprising works. Students will interpret works of art using age-appropriate descriptive vocabulary and then compare and contrast the works while discussing form and content.

• After participating in the EiaB program, students will understand that artists, viewers, and patrons make connections among the characteristics, expressive features, and purposes of art and design. Students will discuss and debate the idea of “what is art” and learn to critique the works of others in a positive way.

Standard 1Analyze, interpret, and make meaning of art and design using oral and written discourse.

Standard 2 Explain, demonstrate, and interpret a range of purposes of art and design, recognizing that the making and study of art and design can be approached from a variety of viewpoints, intelligences, and perspectives.

Standard 3• Critique personal work and the work of others with informed criteria.• Use specific criteria to discuss and evaluate works of art.• Recognize, articulate, and implement critical thinking in the visual arts by synthesizing, evaluating, and analyzing visual information.

Standard 4• Recognize, demonstrate, and debate philosophic arguments about the nature of art and beauty.• Recognize, demonstrate, and debate the place of art and design in history and culture.

vISUAL ARTS

What do Manders’s works tell us about the world and about everyday objects? Manders considers his works of art to also be inventions. Ask students to imagine and then draw a sculpture/invention that communicates to the world something new about an ordinary object. What might this invention tell us about the person who made it? The kind of culture he or she belongs to? How similar or different might that culture be to their own?

OPTIONAL ACTIvITIES

• Observing materials and using the correct units of measurement, students can estimate the sculptures’ dimensions (height, width, and depth). Also, using the correct units of measurement, students can estimate how much the sculptures weigh.

• Students will analyze what shapes make up Manders’s sculptures and what different shapes can be seen within the sculptures. Additionally, students can assess whether the sculptures are two-dimensional or three-dimensional.

Standard 1Students use a wide variety of tools and techniques to measure and apply results in problem-solving situations and communicate the reasoning used in solving these problems.

Standard 2 Students use geometric concepts, properties, and relationships in problem-solving situations and communicate the reasoning used in solving these problems.

MATHEMATICS

ACTIvITY

PART 1Take a look at the picture of Mark Manders’s sculpture Finished Sentence. Manders has created an apparatus that allows for tea bags to speak. What are they saying? In the space provided, fill in their words.

PART 2Now use your imagination and think up your own device that would give ordinary objects a voice. Draw this invention in the space below.

Notes

GLOSSARY

AbstractEmphasizing lines, colors, generalized or geometric forms in art; not representing concrete realities.

CompositionThe arrangement of parts or forms (e.g., within a work of art, music, or literature).

Contemporary artArt created by living artists.

ContrastOpposition of different forms, lines, or colors in a work of art to intensify each element’s properties, (the contrast of white/black or short/tall).

CuratorThe person at a museum who is in charge of selecting and arranging the works in an exhibition.

DomesticPertaining to the home and or household objects and actions.

ExhibitionA public display of the workof an artist(s).

FigurativeA form or shape that looks like it could be a person or animal.

GalleryA room, series of rooms, or building devoted to the display of works of art.

InteriorAn inside space like a room, house, or school.

InternationalInvolving two or more nations, or countries.

MuseumA building where works of art, scientific specimens, or other objects of permanent value are displayed.

NoncollectingA museum that does not have a permanent collection but instead focuses on changing exhibitions.

RealisticLooking real, as in painted, drawn, or sculpted from real life.

A compliment to the Aspen Art Museum’s Exhibition in a Box program, this guide for educators provides multidisciplinary activities to capture the interest of students and inspire their creativity and includes background information on the featured artist and exhibition. The guide also helps teachers connect the AAM classroom presentation and their visit to the museum with the third-grade curriculum and Colorado state standards. In addition, this guide provides links to online art resources, student activities, a glossary, and pre- and postvisit questions.

The AAM’s educational programs and scholarships are supported by Carolyn and Ken Hamlet, Mary and Patrick Scanlan, and the Colorado Creative Industries. The Colorado Creative Industries and its activities are made possible through an annual appropriation from the Colorado General Assembly and federal funds from the National Endowment for the Arts.

ONLINEAspen Art Museumwww.aspenartmuseum.org/mark_manders.html

Colorado Model Content Standardswww.cde.state.co.us/cdeassess/index_osa.html

Mark Manders’s web sitewww.markmanders.org

BOOKSZuckerman Jacobson, Heidi and Douglas Fogle. Mark Manders: Parallel Occurrences/ Documented Assignments. With contributions by Peter Eleey and Yasmil Raymond. Aspen, CO, and Los Angeles: Aspen Art Press and Hammer Museum, 2010.

Rondeau, James, and Dieter Roelstraet. Mark Manders: Isolated Rooms. Amsterdam: ROMA Publications in collaboration with the Art Institute of Chicago and The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, 2005.

ABOUT THIS GUIDE

SUPPORT FOR EXHIBITION IN A BOX

RESOURCES