Children's Art Exhibitions: the Contexts and Challenges

Children's Environments, 1995, 12 (3), 285-289.

INTRODUCTION

Exhibitions of children's art with their perceived emphasis on product rather than process have been generally overlooked by art historians, educators and researchers. A comparative analysis of the motives underlying selected children's art exhibitions in the last five decades throws some light on changing philosophies of children's art and the cultural nature of children's art exhibition.

This paper commences with a contextual examination of several children's art exhibitions in Canada, London, and the USA. Society's changing notions of childhood, art and children's art are seen to influence the underlying conceptualization of these exhibitions. The political idealism of the post-war era, as reflected in the motivations behind children's art exhibitions, is also discussed. The Hundred Languages of Children exhibition of the art of pre-school children from Reggio Emilia, Italy is cited as a significant example of the communicative potential of children's art exhibitions.

CHANGING SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL CONTEXTS

Changing notions of childhood affect the focus of exhibitions. By the end of the nineteenth century, childhood was seen as a discrete stage of human development. It follows then that this view of childhood led to the belief that the child might have a form of art with its own unique properties, an art not dependent on the art of adults. (Meeson, 1985, p. 362).

Exhibitions exist in a context, bound by time and place. The motivations for organizing exhibitions of children's art are inextricably linked with wider social and educational issues. For example, a specific educational philosophy provided the impetus for the development of the Children's Art Center in Montreal in 1936. Brandtner 1942, p. 176), wrote:

Experiments in progressive education have shown that art and crafts, so long pushed back and held down, should really be in the front line of education. They should be there as a means, not as ends, as creative forces for observation, imagination, reasoning, correction, etc., in short- to improve knowledge and its use and to build character.

Children from the Center participated in a range of exhibitions throughout Canada, and also in the International Exhibition in Paris. It appears that exhibiting the children's art was encouraged both to promote public support of art education for children and to provide a means for children to engage with the art-making process.

The significance to children's art of wider social issues (such as the growth of interest in psychoanalysis) is implied in references to a 1944 exhibition of drawings and paintings by pupils of A.S. Neill's school Summerhill at the Arcade Gallery in London.

What has all this to do with the art of children? The answer is that art springs from the unconscious, from the emotions a neurotic world will produce neurotic art. (Wengraf, 1944, p.4)

The Summerhill exhibition was also viewed by some as a vehicle for communicating the philosophy and methodology of a progressive school which recognized the place of art-making in children's lives. R. W. Bond, an art teacher at Summerhill, acknowledged this need for other teachers to understand the methodology in the approach to art at Summerhill. His explanation referred to notions such as respect for the individuality of the child's development, and the need for the teacher to be a participator in the work of children (Bond, 1944, p. 13). In terms of exhibiting children's art, Bond reflects an approach which invites the viewer to consider children's images in a developmental, social and aesthetic context.

THE INFLUENCE OF MODERNISM

The Modernist movement in America provided the impetus for many exhibitions of children's art in the 1950s. Department stores dedicated their window display spaces to exhibitions 2 which also emphasized the process of art-making. Winslow (1951, p. 190) observed that:

… demonstrations of various art processes were carried on in one of the large show windows of the Hochschild, Kohn & Company department store in Lexington Street by pupils of the Baltimore public schools working under the direction of their art teachers.

Parallels have been drawn by Meeson between children's art and the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century interest in primitive cultures. In the first half of the twentieth century, qualities such as immediacy simplicity and unaffected expression of feeling (Meeson, 1983, p. 363), and other elements of Modernism came to be valued in contemporary aesthetics.

This admiration for Modernist aesthetics is echoed by the editors of the Skanlar's Children's Art Number, a journal which publicized the international Child's Art exhibition held annually in Delhi from 1949 to the mid 1970s. In the editorial section of the 1956 (unpaginated) journal, the aesthetic of Modernism appears to be valued in the selection of art for exhibition:

We tried to set a norm from which we could make our individual assessment ¾ imagination and creativeness, especially in the youngest artists; a sense of composition, fluency of line and a sensitive interpretation, rather than a strictly photographic one, in the older children. (This is why those paintings done in a very literal naturalistic idiom were again rejected.) (Children's Art Number, 1956)

This last comment highlights the tendency of adults to impose their own view of what is significant about children's art, and to reflect what is fashionable in current aesthetics, rather than attempt to understand the specific challenges children face in their artistic development.

POST-WAR SOCIAL AND POLITICAL IDEALISM

Post-war interest in children's art has been evident in a range of exhibitions. 3 The belief in education for international understanding gave impetus to the use of children's paintings to illustrate the notion that children's art from different countries has common qualities. These perceived qualities (such as directness, honesty, frankness, sincerity) were linked with a pervasive post-war optimism:

The art of young people is a fresh examination and appraisal of the world, full of wonder and excitement and unsentimental affection. (Ziegfeld, 1955, p.5)

A particularly poignant collection of children's art which has been exhibited in many countries since the end of World War II is that of the children of Terezin. Now documented by the Jewish Museum in Prague, this collection has been significant in communicating the life and spirit of the thousands of children who passed through the Terezin ghetto in northern Bohemia, most of them on the way to Nazi extermination camps. The drawings have been used to remind viewers of the experiences of Jewish children in the war: these are their voices which have now been preserved, voices of reminder, of truth and hope (Exhibition Catalogue, 1993, p. 11). Using children's artworks to promote international understanding and world peace was the stated aim of the editors of the Shankar's Children's Art Number . Children were perceived to be setting an example to adults, by demonstrating through their art, the rich variety of life, mirrored in its peaceful activities (Children's Art Number, 1956) The attempt to mend fences in the post-war years is a clearly stated aim throughout the journal's editorials. The 1959 editorial is typical of the stated ambitions of a succession of presidents, vice-presidents and education ministers of India who promoted the international exhibitions:

The Children's Number strives to foster mutual understanding among nations. It is perhaps a more effective way of handling the problem of international relations. It makes us understand other peoples, their ways of behaviour and their viewpoints.

(Children's Art Number, 1959)

The first General Assembly of INSEA (The International Society for Education through Art) held in Paris in 1955 articulated the same faith in children expressed by the editors of the Shankar Art Numbers. Zeigfeld, editor of the American journal, School Arts , identified art-making as a war deterrent and expressed fear in the dominance of science in society. He claimed that:

Art predisposes the creator to peaceable activities. … Science cannot provide all the answers or the values which are needed. (Ziegfeld, 1955, p. 54)

An Art example of this international perspective of children's art can be seen in the work of Frances Derham, a pioneer of child art in Australia. Derham amassed a remarkable international collection of children's art including drawings and paintings by Aboriginal children from the missions at Hermansburg and Aurukun, and in contrast, works by children affected by the Spanish Civil War. This extensive international collection was exhibited across Australia in 1938 ¾ 39 and received considerable media coverage: [Derham] was cited as promoting art to foster a true democratic culture .” ( The Advertiser , quoted in Piscatelli, 1994, p. 210.)

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF COMMUNCIATION

The exhibition discussed so far presented children's experience through art-making in a passive way, in which the viewer generally had limited access to information about the context in which the images were created. Thus, the communicative experience was largely predetermined.

In the international exhibition of children's art, A Child's View , provision was made for the creation of a shared sense of meaning between children, adults, and the lives of the children whose works they were viewing. Two areas were set up with tables, one at kneeling height, and folders with sheets of cartridge paper and pencils. Children and adults were invited to respond, through drawing and writing, to the exhibition overall, and specifically to the Icelandic drawing which had been used in the publicity posters.

Questions specific to children, such as:

•  Who do you think these people are?

•  If these children were living where you live, what would they draw?

Prompted them to relate what they were seeing in the exhibition to experiences in their own lives. In addition to individual visits, groups of children, teachers and parents were invited to participate with the curators in exploring the exhibition.

During one of these visits, a group of 10-year old boys, fascinated with the detailed fantasy drawing by a 12-year-old Australian boy, spent at least 20 minutes totally engaged with the drawing. They debated the complex imagery of the fantastic city and admired the way the young artist had integrated his imaginary world with reality. They took the initiative to introduce other children to the image and to share their enthusiasm. On their return to the class-room, the boys spontaneously drew their own fantasy, cities or space-age houses, asking the teacher for fine-point pens to enable them to render fine detail.

In the final weeks of the exhibition, children were observed looking back over the responses which other children had made and left behind in the folder. It was evident that a thread of communication had been achieved through the provision of this opportunity to engage and respond.

RECOGNITION OF THE HUNDRED LANGUAGES OF CHILDREN

The significance of communication in childhood is recognized by educators of young children in Reggio Emilia, Italy, and exemplified in their touring exhibitions of children's images, The Hundred Languages of Children. Loris Malaguzzi, founding director of the Reggio Emilia early childhood program, made the following comment on the importance for children of exhibition their work:

Children are like actors on the [stage]. They need to be seen, to be understood, and to have a relationship with what they do to see what they have done and what others do. (Stevenson & McLean, 1991, taped interview with Louis Malaguzzi)

The English version of The Hundred Languages of Children exhibition, which has been touring the USA in recent years and was also shown in Melbourne, Australia in 1994, documents the work of children in pre-school centers in Reggio Emilia. Detailed transcripts of the children's dialogue accompany the images created by the children in response to their experiences and the ideas which challenge them. The richness of the documentation enables the processes of learning to be analysed by children and adults. Connections are made between children's ideas, activities and representations.

Viewers unfamiliar with the Reggio Emilia philosophy might initially label the children's artworks as “products”. They are, however, conceptualized by the Reggio Emilia educators as works-in-process, functioning in the same way as the photographic records and audio tapes which are an integral part of the exhibition (Malaguzzi, 1994, taped interview).

In The Hundred Languages of Children exhibition, the notion of “separation from lived experience” (Sherman & Rogoff, 1994, p. xii) as a traditional characteristic of artificially created settings, is minimized by reconstructing the children's learning experiences through extension written and visual documentation.

The photographic documentation and verbal transcripts record works-in- progress, and convey the specific problems encountered and the individual responses to shared experiences. They help children relieve exciting moments of discovery. They are used as departure points for further investigations by the children and their teachers. Later, they become part of the archival material available for use in subsequent years.

The artworks in The Hundred Languages of Children exhibition were never intended to be viewed in isolation. The images of S hadowiness for instance, are embedded within the rich context of children's comments and hypotheses, enabling the viewer to reconstruct the process of children's learning and testing.

•  It seems like it's going to obey you and then it does what it wants.

•  it's there and you can't hold on to it.

•  (if you pour water over it), it doesn't drown.

•  The sun makes them to be born in the morning and die at night.

(Exhibition Catalogue, 1987, p. 70)

In this exhibition there is no sense in which the artwork is presented as if in a vacuum. The visual language of children is respected, but not privileged over the other languages through which children make sense of their experiences and ideas. Image-making is seen to be part of children's broader interaction with their environment and the place of social interaction is fundamental in this. When discussing the social practice which surrounds art-making, Pearson observed:

The meanings or values we might want to assign to image products have little relevance without an understanding of the system of social relations within which they operate. (1993, p. 15)

Malaguzzi has commented on the significance of the socially constructed experience which The Hundred Languages of Children exhibition is attempting to reflect. He states:

We have here children and adults who are playing, working, talking, thinking and inventing things together. They are trying to get to know both each other and themselves, and to understand how the 3orld works and how it could be made to work better... (1987, p. 22)

The sense of children in partnership with adults (discussed previously in relation to the Summerhill exhibition) is keenly felt in The Hundred language of Children exhibition. The importance of providing opportunities for risk-taking when children make images in response to their experience of the world is also significant. As Malaguzzi comments:

children need a great deal of freedom to investigate and to try, to make mistakes and to correct mistakes, to choose where and with whom to apply their curiosity, intelligence and feelings. (1987, p.24)

The Hundred Languages of Children exhibition, in refusing to white-wash children's “mistakes,” celebrates the risks they take in their investigations and imaginings. The process of image-making is thus made accessible to the viewers, who in turn must play their part in the dynamic of interpretation.

CONCLUSION

While the above approaches to exhibiting children's art vary in terms of their social and political contexts, it is possible, through these exhibitions, to observe historical changes in the way children are viewed, and in the perceived significance of children's art. For example, a shift is evident from the relatively static examples of post-war exhibitions used to promote international understanding by emphasizing the common bonds between children (and, by extension, adults), to recent exhibitions which reflect a more dynamic approach which views the child as communicator, and the viewer as participant. This shift signals the acknowledgement of contemporary understanding of the socially constructed nature of image-making. The challenge for educators and curators now is to consider the purpose and intention behind particular exhibitions, and to collaborate with children inventing ways to reconstruct some sense of the context in which their images have been created.

NOTES

•  Appros : A series of Art Books edited by Paul Wengraf, contains a series of articles about children's art by writers such as A. S. Neill.

•  Curd (1952) described an exhibition in Indiana in 1952;

[paintings were displayed in the store window]… then we decided that each student whose painting was to hand… should paint a replica in miniature of his original painting, and place this on a tiny easel made of cardboard, painted light brown and shellacked. Dolls were made to represent each of the boys and girls whose wok was on display, and these were placed in the window before their easels in such a way that they seemed to be painting on their nearly finished landscapes. There were as many different personalities in dour dolls as in our girls and boys. (p.42)

•  Evidence of the use of the perceived innocence of children's view of the world to convey a powerful political message is seen in a collection titled Unteilbares Deutchland (Germany indivisible). In 1961, the hopes for reunification of Germany were the basis for children's image-making:

With the innocence of heart, with the guiltlessness, of a new time, these of our young stand up for right and for fairness. In their art, this attitude takes form; it becomes a reality both experienced and anticipated. (Schultz, 1961, p. 10)

REFERENCES

Bond, R. W. (1944). Teaching art to children. In P. Wengraf (Ed.), Drawings by children and pupils of A. S. Neill's school. Apropos: A series of Art Books 2. London: Lund Humphries (for Bond & Wengraf).

Brandtner, F. (1942). Children's art centre of Montreal. School Arts, 41 (5), 176-177.

Children's Art Number, edited by K. Shankar Pillai (1949-75). Shankar's Children's Art Numbers, (unpaginated). New Delhi: Indraprastha Press.

Curd, M. (1952). A window display. School Arts, 52 (2), 43.

Malaguzzi, L. (1987) Codes to the exhibition in The Hundred Languages of Children , Exhibition catalogue: Reggio Emilia.

Meeson, P. (1985). In search of child art. British Journal of Aesthetics, 25 (4), 362-371.

Pearson, P. (1993). Children's drawing as strategies to symbolic power. Australian Art Education, 16 (3), 9-17.

Piscatelli, B. A. (1994). The life of Frances Derham: Process, product and reflections. Unpublished doctoral thesis. James Cook University of North Queensland.

Schultz, W. 92961). Unteilbares Deutchland Kuratorium (no publishing details available).

Sherman, D., & Rogoff, I. (Eds) (1994). Museum Culture: Histories, Discourses, Spectacles. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Wengraf, P. (Ed.) (1944). Drawings by children and pupils of A. S. Neill's school. Apropos: A Series of Art Books 2. London: Lund Humphries (for Bond & Wengraf).

Winslow, L. (1951). Show windows display art education. School Arts, 50 (6), 190-191.

Ziegfeld, E. (1955). Art education/a world view. School Arts, 54 (9), 5-9.

EXHIBITIONS

A Child's View: Reykjavik to Northern Rivers : ABC Ultimo Centre, Sydney 1992.

Art of the child 1930-1970 : Australian National Gallery, Canberra, 1977.

I Have Not Seen a Butterfly Around Here: The Jewish Museum, Prague, 1993.

The hundred languages of children: Reggio Emilia, 1987.