Changeover’s DilemmaA project of

The Avant-Garde Museum Educations Class at Pratt Institute and the Guggenheim Museum

conceived and created by:

Rebecca ArmstrongTrish KaiserAmir Parsa

Brittany SautaCarley Snack

Shina Yoon

The following Gallery Learning Experiences (GLEx) were designed by the students in the Avant-Garde Museum Education class at Pratt Institute for educators at the Guggenheim Museum, especially those working within the Public Engagement wing. Subsequent to a common workshop in the Educators’ Lab at the Guggenheim in April 2016, some elements were revised. Staff and freelance educators will take into consideration some of the ideas, stations, activities and sequences proposed in these two GLExes as they lead groups through the museum during Changeover.

The original GLExes designed by the Pratt group involved questions and information specific to each station and each work. Each of the GLExes was also a separate document. Here, the GLExes have been fused, and a general selection of questions and information has been provided in the last section.

Educators, lecturers, gallery guides and staff will prepare their own inquiry questions and selectively provide information they deem relevant and crucial, especially on specific works that they will examine. In the body of this document, we have provided a small sampling of possible

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questions and information related to Changeover that could be used at particular stations along these GLExes.

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Guggenheim Changeover: GLEx #1The first GLEx proposes the following sequence:

1. Quick introduction inside the museum, followed by a trek outside with the group to observe visitors.

2. Second floor of the rotunda, or ramp of the second floor rotunda.

3. Thannhauser gallery. Works on view, such as Picasso and Pissaro.

4. Kandinsky gallery.

5. Top floor at the ramps.

Pablo Picasso, Woman Ironing. (1904) Oil on Canvas. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Thannhauser Collection, Gift, Justin K. Thannhauser, 1978

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Camille Pissarro The Hermitage at Pontoise. (1867) Oil on Canvas. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Thannhauser Collection, Gift, Justin K.

Thannhauser, 1978

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Guggenheim Changeover: GLEx #2The second GLEx proposes the following sequence:

1. Pause at the rotunda, then all the way to the top. 2. Tower galleries. Any work on view from early modernism. 3. Thannhauser Gallery. Works on view, such as Vuillard,

Monet.

Édouard Vuillard, Place Vintimille. (1908-1910) Distemper on paper, mounted on canvas. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Thannhauser Collection, Gift, Justin K. Thannhauser, 1978

4. Downstairs in The Sackler Center for Arts Education 5. Outside the museum

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Claude Monet The Palazzo Ducale, Seen from San Giorgio Maggiore. (1908) Oil on Canvas. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Thannhauser Collection, Bequest, Hilde Thannhauser, 1991

In-Gallery ActivitiesActivity 1: Mapping the Sensations

This activity takes place all along the Changeover GLEx. Participants will have a map, a piece of paper and pencils. (A specific sheet could be designed for the activity.)

As participants move through the museum, they will be asked to carefully observe their responses to Changeover. The following questions could be integrated into the conversation: What do you see? What do you hear? How do you feel? What are your first thoughts upon entering this environment? What do you wonder? As you walk around the galleries on each floor, moving through the museum with varying distances from Changeover activities, pay attention to the fluctuations in energy. At what points in the museum are you most affected by Changeover? How does it impact your experience and perception of the art and architecture you see? Does this agitate you? Is it exciting?

Participants write a word or multiple words describing these sensations and feelings corresponding to particular places in the museum. Either at the end of the GLEx or at a specific station towards the end (after, say, the fourth stop), the educator talks about/demonstrates examples of the relationships between lines and emotions. Participants go back to the words and render them in line drawings to express the emotions they have felt during the GLEx. Acetate paper can be used to map these emotions for each participant. A further dimension could be the mapping of all the participants’ lines based on particular areas of the museum. Another iteration could be that the presentation on the relationship of lines and emotions is made at the beginning of the GLEx, and participants do line drawings as well as write words during the GLEx.

Activity 2: The Imagined Show

During the GLEx, participants will have viewed artwork in adjacent galleries and also explored and discussed various aspects of Changeover in the rotunda. For this activity, on an iPad at the overlook on one of the ramps, images from past rotunda exhibitions are shown and discussed. Participants first talk about their impressions of those shows, and then in small groups imagine a

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rotunda show based on past artistic experiences or works they think might have a special connection to the space. Participants discuss choices in curation that accommodate the museum’s evolving relationship with the world and the contemporary art scene.

Activity 3: Changeover Tales

Throughout the GLEx, the educator brings the group to various staff involved in Changeover. The particular staff members who will talk to the group can be pre-planned, or, if the educator feels it’s appropriate, there can be impromptu conversations with staff. This will allow staff to share insights, anecdotes and behind the scenes stories, as well as information about particular aspects of Changeover. The Tales will also bring to the forefront staff that museum visitors may be less aware of. These interactions could also be recorded (video, photo, audio), turned into digital shorts and shared on the museum’s website and/or social media.

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Questions and InformationAt each of the proposed stops, educators will use inquiry methods to create and facilitate discussion of the works, the museum itself, and Changeover. Theoretical and historical information about the works, the architecture, particular artists and architects as well as information about various dimensions of Changeover will also be integrated into these explorations. It will be left to individual educators to create their own questions of course, and to integrate the information they deem relevant during their GLEx.

Material related to specific artists and works will generate particular questions and information that the educators will weave in during their explorations. We provide below a range of questions and information that educators can use at the appropriate station. We have included here only those specific to Changeover—and none related to specific artworks.

Questions:

What do you think people are anticipating/intending to see? How do you think Changeover will affect the museum-goers? Name some people that you think might be involved in

Changeover? Name some of the people that you see are involved and the

kinds of roles they appear to be playing. What matches/does not match with your predictions?

What are your thoughts/feelings upon entering Changeover? What is your relationship to the commotion? What parts of your

everyday life might this remind you of? What do you observe looking down at the rotunda from above? Upon examining a particular work: In what ways is this artwork

similar to Changeover? How is this artwork different from Changeover?

If you could create an exhibition in this space with any kind of work you wanted, how would you do it? What would you take into account? Would it be one artist, or a variety of artists?

Art Historical/Theoretical Points:

At the space indicated, the following could be integrated into the discussion by educators, in addition to other material selected by them.

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Rotunda Level 2, facing the ramps1. The curved walls of the museum interior present many logistical

considerations during installation. For example, paintings are installed by tilting in an angle on the slanted spiral ramps.

2. Changeover happens between every exhibition and it usually lasts one month. Rotunda shows (the main spiral area) change about three times a year. Tower shows (the smaller galleries off of the rotunda) change two to three times a year. During the changeover period at the Guggenheim, the ramps are closed and we offer visitors reduced admission. Aside from exhibition installation, touch-up painting of the walls, benches, pillars and railings take place—sometimes resulting in the paint team to work up to 60 hours a week.

Outside the museum, across Fifth Avenue1. In January 1944, Frank Lloyd Wright described his choice of

color and materials for the exterior of the museum to be “red-marble and long slim pottery red bricks.” Other color experiments/proposals included peach/pink-tones.

2. Wright’s original plan for the towers was for artists’ studios and apartments. However, this plan went unrealized, mainly for financial reasons. In 1992, Gwathmey Siegel Associates Architects redesigned and built the 10-story limestone tower, providing additional exhibition galleries. The tower building also allows for flexibility of movement throughout the building.

Thannhauser Gallery Entrance1. You may have noticed that the most prominent material in this

iconic architecture is concrete. You may not have noticed the terrazzo floors. Terrazzo is a flooring material consisting of small chips of marble or granite set in concrete and polished to produce a smooth surface. The terrazzo of the rotunda still remains as it was originally installed 57 years ago with a little wear from thousands of visitors walking across the museum’s floors every day. This material, however, needs constant repair, cleaning and restoration with painstaking attention.

2. There are three variations of the cream-colored terrazzo on the ramps. Each variation marks one of the three major renovations that took place after the Guggenheim Museum was built in 1959. You can follow these shifts in color to get a visual sense of the building’s history: beginning at ramp 2, as you enter Thannhauser Gallery (1968-72 renovation) and at the top of each ramp that connects the main rotunda to the tower building (1992 Gwathmey Siegel addition).

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