KEY POINTS:
Author and educator Brad Irwin has bold ambitions for his new children's book. The ebullient Irwin hopes Let's Get Art will break down misconceptions and smash barriers to children learning about contemporary art.
The picture book follows four children through an art gallery as they look at New Zealand art, casting their interpretations of the works of artists Michael Parekowhai, Yvonne Todd and Shane Cotton, among others.
The children, brought to life by illustrator John Ward Knox, clamber over sculptures, sprawl in front of video installations and point at paintings. The seed of an idea for the book was planted 10 years ago when Irwin worked at Auckland Art Gallery, taking children on art interpretation tours. He discovered an insight into the artwork that most adults rarely see.
"The children would come up with some really meaningful interpretations," he says. "They're so honest and hilarious and critical and see so many more things than adults. I thought these experiences would make a really good kids' book."
Over the next decade the idea evolved, as Irwin became first a primary school teacher specialising in the arts, and then head of education at Te Tuhi gallery in Manukau City, developing art education programmes for students and teachers. However, it wasn't until he began working as a senior tutor at the University of Auckland's School of Arts, Languages and Literacies that he finally got the chance to put his ideas into action. Irwin visited groups of primary schools, showing them pictures of contemporary art works and noting their reactions.
"I would start with really basic questions like what colours can you see, what shapes can you see, and went on to what does this remind you of, and what do you think the artist is trying to tell us, and I'd write down lines I thought were funny or astute."
The hundreds of responses he collected became the dialogue of the four fictional characters in the story. Irwin was constantly surprised with what the children saw in the works, and found the longer they looked, the more tangential the interpretation.
Eve Armstrong's mixed media work Stack prompted a discussion on recycling and landfills. "You show a work like this to kids and they say it's a load of rubbish. And it is, because she assembles in this work a load of rubbish.
"Afterwards I said it's by a woman called Eve Armstrong, and one of the kids asked if she was related to Neil Armstrong, and maybe it's a collection of rubbish on the moon. I love the fact that these kids were letting their imaginations run wild. With art there is no right or wrong, interpretation is completely up to you."
Irwin believes there is great potential for using contemporary art to teach a wide range of subjects in schools. "Instead of saying why don't we talk about what we did in the weekend, you could easily put an artwork up on the wall and say what can you see? Or what do you think the artist is trying to say?"
Teachers often don't have the time or the knowledge of contemporary New Zealand art that would allow them to make use of it in the classroom, he says. "Hopefully a book like this could be used in a classroom to start to motivate children to think creatively and imaginatively, and perhaps use it as a springboard to other curriculum areas."
He hopes the book will go some way to demystifying contemporary art and challenging traditional ideas of what art should be.
"One thing that used to really frustrate me was going to a primary school and seeing so many laminated posters of artworks, but they were all van Gogh, and all those really big international dead artists. Although I think that children should perhaps have an understanding of these works, I think it's far more important to show the New Zealand artwork.
"Who cares about an artist who died hundreds of years ago who is showing in a gallery they may never actually see?"
He emphasises that art is not just a painting on a wall.
"Showing people something like [Walters Prize finalist] Peter Robinson's huge installation ACK blows apart their conceptions of what art is all about. It can be this huge, crazy installation that reaches the ceiling, that you can crawl under, that can smash through walls."
Irwin recently moved to London, where he has a job at the Natural History Museum, managing the science educators. "I'd like to do a British version of the book because no one is doing anything like it."
* Brad Irwin and John Ward Knox will run the Kids Club session at Auckland Art Gallery, tomorrow: each one-hour session runs at 11am and 2pm; $4 entry fee includes art materials; ph (09) 307 4540 or email kidsclub@aucklandartgallery.govt.nz for details.
Let's Get Art (Random House, $34.99).
