Words & Images, a three-museum exhibition project, explores the contexts in which words are used, and how artists visually express their meanings, and the different kinds of words that may be associated with visual images. The goal of the project is to help children expand their visual vocabulary, and to understand that there are many possible visual descriptions and symbols for words.
The Kidspace @ MASS MoCA Words & Images exhibition project FREEDOM features six world-renowned artists of Asian descent including Roger Shimomura, Ang Tsherin Sherpa, Ran Hwang, Gonkar Gyatso, Long-Bin Chen, and Xu Bing. Shimomura, born in Seattle, Washington, who was in a WWII Japanese-American internment camp as a child, will include his pop art paintings of himself as various cartoon characters and superheroes. Sherpa, born in Nepal, puts a pop art twist on traditional Tibetan thangka paintings. Hwang, born in Korea, will show her meditative installations depicting caged and un-caged birds made from buttons. Gyatso, born in Tibet, turns sculptures of the Buddha into pop icons using collage materials. Chen, of Taiwan, whose exhibitions include an extremely popular solo show in Kidspace (2005), will display his latest book sculpture. A special feature of the exhibition will be an interactive installation by Xu Bing, of China, whose work is featured in our main galleries; families can try their hand at calligraphy and with forming a scaled-down version of his light-box landscape drawing.
A gallery guide, special interactive labels, and opportunities to meditate will encourage visitors to re-interpret or define the work on view, leading to deeper understandings of the concept of freedom. Additionally, the Kidspace now-famous Artbar will invite visitors to make their own “words of art” for which they will develop their own representations of various words, and will be engaged in making artistic material choices.
Moe information: MASS MoCA KIDSPACE