The exhibition POP ART: Icons That Matter at the Musée Maillol has excellent teaching resources to explore a key movement in 20th century U.S. culture.
The exhibition features works from the permanent collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.
The Musée Maillol's teaching page lets you download a detailed teaching pack. It gives plenty of background (in French) and several detailed projects going from primary school to lycée. Many of them suggest cross-curricular work with French, History, Art or Philosophy. The historical period fits well into the history curriculum in both 3ème and Terminale. There is also information about class visits and audio guides.
Pop Art's focus on everyday objects makes it a mine of tasks in a language class - neither pupils nor teacher need art training to be able to talk about what is on view. The trailer for the exhibition doesn't have any voiceover but offers fabulous examples of pop art for discussion. It's a small enough selection to be able to ask different groups to work on different works.
You can bring up a photo gallery of works from the exhibition on the site, although you may want to make a selection ahead of time. Plenty of the images are discussable with all levels, but you may want to avoid Mel Ramos' Tobacco Rhoda, 1965 – a nude sitting on cigarette packets.
The exhibition title: "Icons that Matter" can lead to an interesting discussion about what can be considered iconic images of U.S. culture but also that of other cultures.
Copyright(s) :
Claes Oldenburg, French Fries and Ketchup, 1963, 50th Anniversary Gift of Mr and Mrs Roberts M. Meltzer © Claes Oldenburg, 1963
Tag(s) : "art" "Cold War" "consumerism" "Lichtenstein" "painting" "pop art" "slideshow" "teaching pack" "video" "Warhol" "Whitney Museum"