Activity testing for MoMA Art Lab: Movement. Photo: Jackie Armstrong
Recently, Family Programs staff were interested in testing out some of the activities under consideration for MoMA Art Lab: Movement before it opened (on October 10, 2013). Formative evaluation is a “try it out” method that is less formal than other evaluation types.
Kenneth Goldsmith performs a guerilla reading in the MoMA galleries. Photo: Jackie Armstrong
When visiting a museum, especially in New York City, it’s easy to wander around without pausing to look at specific works of art. After all, there’s so much to see and crowds to contend with.
Organized in collaboration with Caroline Woolard, a Brooklyn-based artist who participated in MoMA’s inaugural Artists Experiment initiative, MoMA Studio: Exchange Café was designed to be a social space focused on exchanged-based practices. Taking the form of a café, the Studio encouraged visitors to question notions of reciprocity, value, and property through shared experiences.
Back in the fall of 2012, I wrote a post highlighting the Roving Gallery Guide initiative piloted by the Department of Education staff last summer. Recently, MoMA’s freelance educators completed their own interventions.
View of MoMA Studio: Common Sense from above
If you came through the Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building at MoMA this fall, you probably noticed MoMA Studio: Common Senses. You may have taken a closer look, perhaps intrigued by one of the installations or by one of the activities. The design of this MoMA Studio was particularly engaging and full of opportunities to interact with the installations.
MoMA Learning was launched with great excitement in October, and user feedback has already helped the site evolve, prompting tweaks to design and informing additional content and features.
Visitors to MoMA Studio: Common Senses in the days after Hurricane Sandy. Photo by Jackie Armstrong
When I received notice that MoMA would be reopening to the public and its employees on Wednesday, October 31, after being closed for two days due to Hurricane Sandy, I have to admit that I wondered if it was too soon.
The Department of Education continuously seeks new ways to increase visitor engagement with art. It’s exciting to brainstorm ideas with colleagues, test them out, and see the most promising ideas put into practice.
A MoMA visitor examines Marcel Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel. (New York, 1951 [third version, after lost original of 1913]. Metal wheel mounted on painted wood stool. The Sidney and Harriet Janis Collection. © 2012 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris/Estate of Marcel Duchamp)
Looking at modern and contemporary art can provoke a lot of questions. Struggling to understand or relate to it is not unusual, and in fact many artists view those reactions as part of the art. Marcel Duchamp famously said that “the creative act is not formed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act.”
Material Lab at MoMA. Photo by Michael Nagle
As the Emily Fisher Landau Education Fellow, I work cross-departmentally to evaluate MoMA’s interpretive resources (labels, audio guides, etc.), exhibitions, programs, and new initiatives by interviewing, observing, and using other methods to help MoMA offer the best visitor experiences possible.
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