Pop Art Picnic for Families at the LGBT Community Center
Apr 24, 2015
Pop Art Picnic at the LGBT Community Center, April 2015. Photograph by Lester Echem
On Saturday, April 11, Whitney educators participated in the LGBT Community Center’s Pop Art Picnic. A Whitney community partner since 2010, the LGBT Center invited the Whitney to collaborate on an art-themed family program. For the event, they transformed their 1,900-square-foot Lerner Auditorium into a whimsical indoor park with flowering hedges, landscaped grass, giant flowers, and a 15-foot tree. The festivities featured a Pop art printmaking activity led by Whitney Education staff, a photo booth, food, and face painting by painter and muralist Kenny Scharf.
Print demonstration at Pop Art Picnic, April 2015. Photograph by Billie Rae Vinson
Whitney educators showed kids and families works by Andy Warhol from the Whitney’s collection such as Green Coca-Cola Bottles (1962). In this work, Warhol printed the image of 112 Coca-Cola bottles in regular rows, seven high by sixteen across, above the company’s logo. Unlike his later silkscreen paintings, Warhol used a single carved woodblock to stamp each bottle by hand.
Making a print at Pop Art Picnic, April 2015. Photograph by Billie Rae Vinson
Inspired by Warhol’s process, kids made their own hand block prints using ballpoint pens to draw on foam board, inking the board with water-based marker, and pressing their inked boards onto paper. They could repeat the process by using other colors and layering their prints.
Adding details to a Pop print, April 2015. Photograph by Billie Rae Vinson
Family Programs Coordinator Billie Rae Vinson summed up the day: “In addition to participating in this festive, fun event, it was a great opportunity to meet families connected to the neighborhood through the LGBT Community Center and invite them to our upcoming programs when the Whitney’s new building opens on May 1.”
Dina Helal, Manager of Education Resources