This summer the Guggenheim Museum’s featured exhibition was “Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward.” If you had a chance to stroll the museum’s spiral ramp, contemplating the famous architect’s geometric complexity, you might have run into Natasha Schlesinger and a gaggle of delighted children playing “I spy.” Delighted children? Here? You wouldn’t have been seeing things.
“[The exhibition] seems very esoteric and adult-like,” says Schlesinger, “but I really did bring 4-year-olds there.” Schlesinger is the founder and tour guide of ArtKids, a program that teaches kids ages 3 and up about art and art history through museum tours and hands-on projects. She uses games, costumes and props to help them explore art on their own terms. “A 3-year-old can have an amazing appreciation for art,” she says. “It’s all in how you present it.”
Schlesinger understands this from her own childhood in Russia, where she accompanied her father on visits to the Tretyakov Gallery and the Pushkin Museum. Her father, Alexander Livshits, was a well-known Russian comedian and entertainer as well as an educator and art collector. He inspired a love of art in his daughter, who went on to major in art history at Barnard, lead tours of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, work as a specialist in European furniture at Christie’s, and run an antiques consulting company in New York and Paris.
When Schlesinger had her first child, Sophia, she began taking her to museums, as her father had done with her. But she found herself dissatisfied with many of the education programs, especially since many of them were not designed to suit different age groups. So Schlesinger began doing her own legwork, coming up with creative ways to give Sophia an engaging experience.
It dawned on her that the art education she was giving her children was something she could offer to other kids, too. In 2001 she launched a program called Museum Adventures with her friend Jennifer Ratner, a pediatric oncologist. In 2004, Schlesinger became the program’s sole operator. By now a mom of three (son Julian and daughter Annabelle followed Sophia), she expanded her offerings to include more classes, birthday parties, book clubs, and audio tours, and changed the name to ArtKids to better reflect the spirit of the program. “I bring the kids to the art, and the art to the kids,” she says.
Before long, the children’s parents were asking Schlesinger to provide tours for them as well, so she created ArtMuse, a program offering tours for adults. Currently she is collaborating with video producer Mindy Mervis on ArtXplorers, a TV/DVD series for kids with an accompanying website.
When planning the ArtKids curriculum, Schlesinger looks for exhibits that are “touchable” and “interactive,” like the “Anthropodino” installation by artist Ernesto Neto at the Park Avenue Armory, where kids could jump on pillows and smell incense. But she doesn’t side-step hands-off places. Instead, she brings along touchable objects similar to what her students are looking at and tells the stories behind pieces and artists they’re exploring. Past trips have included the African exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where the kids took part in drumming exercises, heard African stories and created masks; and the Mt. Vernon Hotel and Museum, where students learned about life in the 19th Century. At the end of each class, students work on an art project inspired by the exhibit.
Over time, Schlesinger says, the children learn to look, consider and appreciate what they see. “The more you expose them to, the more their eye gets adjusted,” she says. What is more, encounters with art inspire children to try new things and consider new ideas. “Maybe they’ll try and risk something in another area,” Schlesinger says. “It opens their eyes and their minds.”
For more info, call 646-678-4497 or visit artmuseny.com.
