Press

ALBANY, N.Y. -- Hundreds of schoolchildren are learning how to interpret fine art at the New York State Museum through the Fleet Great Art Exhibition and Education Program.

Students from schools throughout the area are visiting the State Museum to learn about Pop Art: Selections from the Museum of Modern Art, the first Fleet Great Art exhibit running through May 2.

"As part of the State Education Department, we are deeply committed to making the Fleet Great Art Series a memorable learning experience for students, as well as adults," Museum Director Cliff Siegfried said.

Education programs for students are developed in collaboration with the Capital Region Center for Arts in Education. The programs are ongoing from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays for the visiting students. On weekends through April 25 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., an artist is available to answer questions for the general public.

Schools participating in the Pop Art outreach programs include: Fort Edward Elementary School, Livingston Magnet School in Albany and the Oliver Winch Junior High School in South Glens Falls.

Teaching artist Tom Gagnon, an abstract painter, first worked with many of the students in their classrooms showing them slides and preparing them for the Museum experience.

As Gagnon takes them on a tour of the exhibit, he engages them with questions about what they see in the works, what they consider to be their favorite paintings or their least favorite.

Then to make the conceptual leap, students construct their own Pop Art to gain a better understanding of what artists like Andy Warhol, Robert Indiana and Claes Oldenburg were trying to express.

The students' Pop Art pieces may be displayed on a board outside the Pop Art exhibit to show how they used some of the same techniques used by those artists involved in the Pop Art movement.

Some of the exhibit's highlights include Warhol's famous series of thirty-two Campbell's Soup Cans, 1962, and Self-Portrait, 1966; Tom Wesselmann's well-known Still Life #30; and Oldenburg's Giant Soft Fan, 1966-67.

Curated by Anne Umland, Pop Art features 26 works from MoMA's renowned collection - all created in the U.S. during the 1960s - the defining decade of this movement.

The series is funded through a $450,000 grant from Fleet to be used over the next three years to bring exceptional shows to the State Museum. An additional $100,000 challenge grant from The Hearst Foundation, Inc. will help the Museum further strengthen the program.

The series was made possible with the leadership of state Sen. Roy M. Goodman, R-Manhattan, who initiated these exhibits by encouraging the partnership between the State Museum and the great art museums of New York City.

Along with Goodman, Harry M. Rosenfeld, editor-at-large of the Times Union of Albany, was instrumental in assisting the State Museum.

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