My colleague, Sara, and I took 13 students to the Vancouver Art Gallery for an all-day field trip on November 3, 2010.  It was an incredible time, all of us happily soaking up art (once we got the guided tour out of the way)!

Highlights for me:

Robert Adams: The Place We Live, A Retrospective Selection of Photographs

The exhibition includes more than 300 photographs representing each of Adams’ major projects…

The delicate small B&W photos from Sweden made me overwhelmed with sentimentality.

A 1968 trip to Sweden with his wife and lifelong helpmate, Kerstin, suggested to Adams the possibility of a socially and environmentally responsible approach to the built environment. (source)

Song Dong–Waste Not

I adored this exhibit.  The organization, the memories, the beauty of everyday objects, the maternal, the grieving…

The installation comprises the frame of his mother’s house along with all of the everyday objects she meticulously collected over the course of her lifetime: a collection of over ten thousand worn and broken objects, each one with unlimited potential value. Together, the assembled materials—clothes, books, kitchen utensils, toiletries, school supplies, shopping bags, rice bowls, dolls—were used, recycled, and saved. Meticulously arranged in careful groupings throughout the exhibition space, the objects form a miniature cityscape that viewers can navigate around and through.

TEACHER’S GUIDE: Everything Everyday

In Dialogue with Carr: Douglas Coupland, Evan Lee, Liz Magor, Marianne Nicolson

This exhibition strategically pairs the work of Emily Carr with key contemporary BC artists–Douglas Coupland, Evan Lee, Liz Magor and Marianne Nicolson-to draw out a dialogue between Carr’s legacy and the myriad ways in which artists respond to it.

TEACHER’S GUIDE: In Dialogue Carr Coupland

Kerry James Marshall

This was the highlight of the day for me.  Not just because Sara did such an amazing job of explaining the exhibit, but because of the way the students responded to the show and what the paintings made me feel.

Marshall’s paintings depict primarily African-American figures, using formally diverse art historical methods that speak to the visibility and invisibility of “blackness” in the history of western art. The exhibition presents approximately 20 paintings exemplary of Marshall’s practice.  For Marshall, social responsibility means creating artworks that both celebrate and unravel the black experience in America.

TO SEE MY SKETCHBOOK PROJECT GO TO: LINK

TEACHER’s GUIDE: Kerry James Marshall Guide