Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY

Hello from the Education Department at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. We’ve just completed session three of our ten-session program, which means that our students are in the midst of preparing their first projects.

This spring, we are offering two separate (but related) workshops for high school artists: a digital photography class, and an electronic music class. The photographers are constructing series of original pictures while the musicians are creating experimental music pieces. At the halfway point in the program, each student will swap work with someone from the other class. The students will then begin a second project, inspired by the work of their partner. The final works will be audio slideshows, comprised of photographs and music together.

The structure for this program evolved from a conversation about the painter Vasily Kandinsky (1866-1944) and his friendship with composer Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951). Kandinsky, an important artist in the Guggenheim’s collection, believed that painting and music were strongly related and that that he and Schoenberg were addressing synonymous ideas, but through different mediums.

With Kandinsky’s ideas in mind, we designed a program that we hope will allow high-school-age artists to be inspired by a variety of sources, be it in their own medium or in another.

We'll keep you posted....