The Art of Children Visiting MOCA
Robert Rauschenberg, Coca-Cola Plan (1958)
Working at MOCA in the galleries talking with patrons about the art was a wonderful job. I worked there for about three years and learned so much about contemporary art, working with the public, protecting the art, how museums work, and furthering my art history knowledge. By far the best part of my job was talking with and observing children. They are hilarious. Some kids are horrified to be in the galleries with their parents after all the rules are told to them about not touching anything, being quiet, etc. Some kids are bored, and you can tell they can’t wait till the parent “art outing” will be over. My goal when I saw kids was to make art and visiting museums a fun experience.
Scavenger hunts. As a parent myself, I have always used scavenger hunts as a fun way to get kids involved. Where are the keys to the car? Where is the turn to the ice cream store? Where is the rainbow ice cream carton? I thought it would be fun to implement this technique in the galleries at MOCA. The best gallery to do this was the Pop Art gallery that had some of Robert Rauschenberg’s Combine art in them. His combines were sculptures that usually had the elements of wood, paint, objects, and the written word. Some of the objects Rauschenberg would include in his combines were; a stuffed chicken, a baseball, a photo of a man in a white suit, a goat, a dog, coke cans, wings, shoes, and other easily recognizable elements for children to identify. I love the story that he would just walk around his neighborhood in New York and pick up discarded items for his combines and if he didn’t find enough objects he would walk around a few more blocks!
In the Pop Art Gallery, I loved to ask kids to find elements in the Coca-Cola Plan by Robert Rauschenberg. This combine had coke bottles, wings, a ball, and what looked like a tic-tac-toe board etched into the wood. As the kids came in bored or scared with their parents into the gallery, I would directly ask them a question saying, “can you find a pair of wings on any of the art?” The kids would immediately look to their parents for approval and then start looking around the gallery with a smile on their face and a new determination. One little girl found wings on another pop art painting in the gallery that I never noticed. Kids are very observant, and it is fun to see them relax and have fun with the art. Kids get art, they create it in school a ton when they are younger and art in the classroom dwindles off as they get older. Having museums continue that art education is wonderful and MOCA has many school programs. Scavenger hunts can help bring fun to learning about art in museums!