USING THIS SAMPLE TOUR OF
Art since the 1960s: California Experiments
1. Please be sure you include at least two of the Gallery Activities for all school tours of
the permanent collection exhibition, Art since the 1960s, in your tour. Schools visit us
because the museum experience we offer specifically meets Visual Arts; Language Arts;
and History-Social Science Content Standards. Gallery Activities connect to these
standards. Gallery Activities will be implemented sometime in late September 2007.
a. Adapt Gallery Activities to your audience. If your students are not strong in
writing, use Gallery Activities as talking points. You can also ask students to work
individually, with a partner, or as a group for most activities.
2. Whenever you can, please reference and connect the art in this show to the history of
California and California artists’ contributions to and influences on the world of
art. This is #4.4a in the Fourth Grade Social Studies Content Standards.
3. Avoid the back section of the Performance Video Gallery on school tours. There
are video segments with nudity that some adults and children may find objectionable.
4. This sample tour has more stops than you will have time to include. You are not
expected to follow it exactly. It is a compilation of ideas and suggested tour strategies.
Many of these strategies are generic, meaning they can be applied to other artworks as
well. Please adapt these suggestions to your audience and contain your tour within the
50 minute time limit. Not everyone will be able to start their tour in the gallery noted in
this sample tour, but you may adapt other stops for your introduction, or come up with
your own.
5. Statements not in brackets are suggested tour items. [Statements in brackets] are
suggested instructions for you to follow. Words in bold are vocabulary words.
Statements in italics are transitions.
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THE PATHWAY
Due to the condensed nature of Art since the 1960s, it is highly recommended that docents
arrive early, about 20 minutes, to their tours in order to agree upon a clear, well-structured
pathway through the galleries. Inconsistencies can, of course, still occur, so please plan to be
flexible on your tour. For example, if a docent is still in the location you wish to go to next, focus
briefly on another piece and then transition back to your scripted tour. Try to keep all groups as
evenly spaced as possible so you do not collide or disrupt one another.
Below is a grid of the suggested tour pattern. It is assumed that each stop takes from 5-10
minutes. Please plan the path that makes your tour day run as smoothly as possible.
DOCENT
Docent A
STOP 1
Pop art
STOP 2
Assemblage
Docent B
Assemblage
Docent C
Video and
Performance
Installation
Video and
Performance
Installation
Docent D
Neoconceptual
STOP 3
Video and
Performance
Installation
Neoconceptual
Pop art
STOP 4
Installation
Neoconceptual
Pop art
Assemblage
STOP 5
Neoconceptual
Pop art
Assemblage
Video and
Performance
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INTRODUCTION & THEME
Welcome to the Orange County Museum of Art! [Greet each student by name and introduce
self.] Have any of you been to our museum before? Do you remember what you saw when you
were here last time? How many of you have been to any museum before? What do you typically
find in museums? Why do we have museums in our culture?
I’m so glad you decided to visit us today. I know you’re all busy learning new things in schools
and it’s great that your teachers see value in traveling outside your classroom to add to your
learning.
I would also like to thank our parent chaperones for joining us today. I know that you will be
active participants in our tour and I appreciate your helping me keep our group together.
Think of this museum as another learning place so we do expect the same type of learning
behavior. Did your teacher review proper museum behavior with you? Can you please tell me
the most important rule to follow as you go through the museum today? That’s right: no
touching. What other rules could an art museum have? [Stay with the group; keep voices at an
indoor level; raise hands to contribute answers.] Here is another very important rule: there are
no right or wrong answers! I will be asking you questions to encourage you to look and think
carefully about the art you will see. They are questions about your opinions and feelings. All I
ask is that when you answer a question, you tell me why you feel that way. Always back up your
statements with evidence! Use descriptive language to direct our eyes to what you are talking
about. Please do not point at artwork in case you accidentally touch it. We will all learn a lot
today about looking and critical thinking as we view art from these California artists.
The exhibition, Art since the 1960s: California Experiments travels back in time almost 50 years,
and also takes us to the art of today. Each California artist has an idea or opinion to express
and has contributed to and influenced the world of art. People broke away from tradition in
the 1960s. They embraced new ideas and new ways of doing things. They experimented with
different ways of creating art; they used things like trash, video, and even lipstick to create art.
What is an experiment? How would you experiment when creating art? The artists we are
seeing today didn’t care if the viewers didn’t “get” their art or if the art wasn’t pretty. These
artists continued to experiment with art, and kept creating new and different kinds of artwork.
This type of artwork requires a viewer to look at a piece and think carefully about the message
the artist is trying to convey.
Volunteers like me guide you through the museum and help you look closely at the works of art.
I will be asking for some volunteer help today from you, too. I will choose volunteers who are
demonstrating that they are responsible enough for the task. I hope all of you can help me out!
Our first stop will be to see an artist who is very famous for creating artwork that he never even
touched. Does anyone have any ideas for making art that you never touch? Let’s see what kind
of art he created.
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STOP 1: POP ART
** Please Note: Below are two options for touring the Pop Art section. Please keep your
tour stop to the 5-10 minute limit to allow for effective tour flow. **
Andy Warhol, Campbell’s Soup I: Tomato, 1968
What do you see here? Do you recognize the object in the picture? Andy Warhol claimed he ate
Campbell’s Soup every day for lunch.
I told you earlier that this artist, Andy Warhol, probably never touched this artwork. How was it
created? What other objects does it resemble that you have seen before? [Posters,
advertisements]
[A serigraph is basically a silkscreen. It is a print made using a stencil process in which an
image or design is superimposed on a very fine mesh screen and printing ink is squeegeed onto
the printing surface through the area of the screen that is not covered by the stencil.]
This is an art print, one of many in a series, and was perhaps never touched by the artist
himself. Warhol mechanized the artistic process, using assistants to create his work, calling his
studio the “factory.”
Think about the possible relationship between the soup can in the picture and how the picture
was made. What do these two things have in common? [Both were mass-produced.]
When Warhol first displayed his soup can in a Los Angeles gallery in 1962, he lined 32 different
“flavors” of soup in a row on a little shelf. Why would he do this?
[Supermarkets proliferated in Canada and the United States, along with suburban areas after
World War II. In the early days of retailing, all products had to be fetched by an assistant from
shelves on one side of a counter while the customers stood on the other side and pointed to
what they wanted. These practices were labor-intensive, expensive, and slow.]
When these images were new, some critics put down Warhol for celebrating consumer products
from popular culture and called his artwork “pop art.”
 What is the word “pop” short for?
 Do you think this is an appropriate subject for fine art? Why or why not?
Critics also scoffed at Warhol’s technique. He used methods he had learned as a commercial
designer. He even said that employing assistants helped him make more art than if he just
made art by himself.
 Does a work of art have to be touched by the artist to be valid?
 Should Warhol still be credited as the artist?
Andy Warhol’s soup can shows us some characteristics of one of the important art movements
since the 1960s: conceptual art. In conceptual art, the idea is the art, not necessarily the final
object, like a painting or a sculpture. The most important thing in conceptual art is the idea. With
this in mind, even a print of an everyday can of soup can be considered art.
While he was from New York, the first exhibition of Andy Warhol’s Soup Can prints was held
right here in Southern California. His approach to art had a huge influence on California artists,
who based their ideas on his conceptual method of making art.
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Transition: We will next see another conceptual artist who was inspired by something that she
saw everyday when she sat down to create her drawings. Maybe this is something you use
everyday at school.
Vija Celmins, Eraser, 1967
 Does this remind you of anything you’ve seen before?
 How is this object different from the object you are accustomed to using? Why don’t
erasers usually come in this size?
 How would you describe this work of art to someone who has never seen it?
 What materials did the artist use? Let’s take a peek at the object label, the text on the
wall that tells us important details about the works of art in museums. Can I have a
volunteer read what the materials are?
The artist has used an effect called trompe l’oeil in her sculpture. Trompe l’oeil literally means,
“fools the eye” in French.
 Did this sculpture fool your eyes? How did the artist accomplish this?
Like Andy Warhol, Vija Celmins experiments with art’s subject matter: what the art is about.
 Does art need to be about important events or places to be “good” art? Can art be about
everyday things, like soup and erasers? What makes you think the way you do?
Transition: Let’s see another artist, creating art around the same time as Andy Warho and Vija
Celminsl, who made conceptual art: he thought that the idea was more important that the end
result.
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STOP 2: ASSEMBLAGE
** Please Note: Below are two options for touring the Assemblage section. Please keep
your tour stop to the 5-10 minute limit to allow for effective tour flow. **
George Herms, Deed to Secret Archive, 1974
Has anyone seen this before? Where have you seen it? [If they say they have seen a
reproduction, ask how it is different in real life.] [Refers to featured artist in the Pre-Visit Packet.]
 Observe this work of art. Now close your eyes. With your eyes still closed, what can you
remember about the work of art?
 What materials did this artist use to create this? Is it a sculpture, a painting?
 How would you describe this work of art to someone who has never seen it?
 What do the objects remind you of?
 George Herms often included the letters from the word “love” in his artwork. Can you find
the letters L, O, V, and E?
Symbolism in art occurs when artists choose a symbol, or representation, of an object or an
idea to stand in for the actual object or idea. For example, take the symbol of a heart. What
does a heart represent? [Love, affection.] Let’s observe some of the symbols George Herms
used.
 Name some of the objects Herms used. What ideas or things could these objects be
symbols for?
Herms experiments with objects otherwise discarded as trash in his artwork. He sees dignity in
the things most people throw away. The items that Herms finds laying around in trash bins or on
the side of the road are called found objects: natural objects not originally intended as art, but
found and considered to have artistic value by the artist.
 Why would the artist make art out of these everyday objects?
 Does art need to be made out of precious materials, like paint or marble, to be
considered “good” art?
 What is more important to George Herms: the act of creating his artwork, or the final
product? Why do you think the way you do?
Transition: Let’s see another artist who uses the refuse of society to create artwork that you
need to look very closely at in order to interpret its true meaning.
Ed and Nancy Kienholz, End of the Bucket of Tar with Speaker Trail #2, 1974
 What materials do you see?
 How do the materials look like they were applied or used?
 What materials did you observe? [Encourage multiple responses.]
 How were they applied, or used?
 What do all of these materials have in common?
Kienholz has created an assemblage, or 3-D collage, of found objects. This piece was created
when the Kienholzes were living in Berlin, Germany in the 1970s. They scavenged flea markets,
junkyards, trashbins and the streets for discarded materials like the kind you see here, and
experimented with putting them together in new combinations to create new meanings for them.
[Draw attention to photographs.]
These photographs, for example, were found in an album set out in the trash.
 How would you describe these photographs: what condition are they in?
 What are they photographs of?
 How are they arranged?
 When does it look like they were taken? What was going on during that historical period?
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Let me preface this by telling you that Kienholz did not like to offer exact interpretations of his artwork.
This underscores the fact that there are no right or wrong answers in our interpretations of this artwork,
only informed guesses.
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What associations does the tub bring to mind?
The light fixture?
Why didn’t he clean the tub, or hide these unsightly wires?
Do you hear anything coming from this piece? The Kienholzes included a radio to transmit
present-day radio broadcasts. Why would they include this?
Why would the artists choose to combine these objects in this manner?
The artists have recombined the detritus of society to try to create new meanings. Do you think
they were successful? Why or why not?
Does a work of art need to be beautiful in order to be “good” art? Why or why not?
Transition: How many of you have pets? Of the pet owners, how many of you have dogs? Our
next artist has experimented with another new medium. He uses his pet dogs in much of his art.
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STOP 3: VIDEO AND PERFORMANCE
William Wegman, Framed and Boxed, 1988
 What do you see in this picture?
 What colors do you see? [Different shades of brown]
 How is this photograph different from a picture you might have of a family pet?
 How does the dog appear to you? Do you think he likes being framed and boxed? What
part of the dog tells you that? [Dog is looking down]
 What is a frame and how do we use it? [A frame is used to make a picture/painting look
finished/polished]
 Why do you think Wegman placed his dog on a box? [To give his artistic creation, a
sculpture, a finished and polished look.]
William Wegman is well known for dressing up, posing, photographing and filming his pet
Weimaraner dogs. His famous dogs have even been on “Sesame Street” and in music videos.
He began experimenting by filming his dogs in the early 1970s. Such videos include “Dog
Biscuit in Glass Jar.” A mysterious human hand sets down a glass bottle with a dog cookie in it
in front of Wegman’s dog, Man Ray. The video is several minutes long, and shows the dog
trying to roll the bottle around, stick his nose in the bottle, anything to get the cookie inside.
Finally, Man Ray breaks the bottle open, and the cookie spills out. After he eats the cookie, the
video ends with Man Ray looking in the bottle for more cookies!
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Where would you normally expect to see funny videos or pictures of people’s pets?
What is the difference between pictures and videos of pets that you see on television or
online, and Wegman’s videos and pictures?
Are Wegman’s videos and photographs art, or just funny documentations of his pets’
shenanigans? What makes you think the way you do?
Transition: So far we looked at how artists experimented with art by making it about soup and
erasers, by using trash, and by taking pictures of their pets doing things pets don’t normally do.
We have covered a lot of topics. Take a deep breath and let out the air slowly. How do you feel?
Good, let’s see if you’ll feel the same way after viewing the next artwork.
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STOP 4: INSTALLATION
Kim Abeles, Smog Collector Series, 1990
What you see before you is an installation called, “Smog Collector Series.”
 Can anyone define installation for us? Let’s break up this word into words we might
recognize. What does the word “install” mean? What could “installation” mean? An art
installation is an artwork that occupies an area or entire room in a museum or gallery. It
exists not only on the walls, but on the floor or even the ceiling, too.
 What are the different parts of Kim Abeles’ installation?
Let’s focus more closely on the highchair, entitled “Zoe’s Highchair (Forty Days of Smog),
accomplished in 1990-91.
 Can you name the images on the tray?
 Look at the color, how would you describe it?
 How do you think these images were created? (Stenciled)
Abeles came up with the idea for the series when she left her daughter’s highchair outside for a
few days. When she returned to pick up the chair, she noticed that an imprint of a cup, plate and
utensils were left on the tray due to collected particulate matter in the atmosphere. It was an
accidental science experiment.
 Why do you think this incident motivated Abeles to bring this issue to the public’s
attention? [Abeles may have been concerned about the safety of her daughter breathing
polluted air, or about the state of the world her daughter and other young people will
inherit in future generations.]
 If forty days of smog results in the darkened areas seen in the first image, what might
the impact of forty years look like?
Instead of using a traditional material like paint or ink, the artist used smog as her medium. She
put her template on a piece of Plexiglas and placed it on the roof of her studio in downtown Los
Angeles. Particulate matter in the air covered the surface over time, and when the template was
removed, the image was revealed. Abeles exposed the lighter areas (curtain and flower pots)
for twenty days, and the darker areas (factory) for forty days.
 What message they think the artist seeks to communicate through her work? [The artist
may be trying to make visible the negative effects of pollution on our health and on our
environment.]
 How does the artist’s choice of materials help convey her ideas?
 Do you think she could create a more realistic or beautiful image if she used paint or
pastel? Would her message be as strong? Why or why not?
Transition: Did Kim Abeles work make you think differently about the air you breathe and the
environment in live in? Using the materials of light and space, our next artist also wants to make
you take a moment to think about the atmosphere around you, specifically the quality of light in
our environment. He makes art out of light.
Robert Irwin, Untitled (#2220), 1969
Robert Irwin painted a lot in his earlier career as an artist. Gradually, he became less interested
in making art out of objects, and became more in experimenting with space and light. Like Kim
Abeles, he felt it was important to illustrate that the California landscape is not only made of the
objects in it, like water, land, or buildings, but the air and the light as well. Walk around and
observe what this piece is made of. Where is the light source for this? Let’s sit and stare for 30
seconds. [Instruct students to sit or stand quietly and stare at the center of the piece.]
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What is happening to the shapes as you stare at them? [The edges of the disc blur and
appear to merge into the wall.]
Robert Irwin believed that paintings were too limited: they end at the frame. Like
landscapes do in real life, he thought that art should attempt to extend as far as possible.
He experimented with making something that extended beyond the frame of a work of
art. Has he succeeded?
Think about the space around this object. The space is also part of the artwork. What if
this piece were in a crowded room with lots of other artwork? Would your impression of it
be different?
Irwin has said that “the viewer completes the artwork.” What could he mean by this?
The title of this piece is, Untitled. Is this a good name for this work of art? Think about
some adjectives to describe this piece. Can you think of a more descriptive name?
Robert Irwin put Los Angeles art more into the spotlight with Light and Space artwork. The
entire country began seeing California not only as the place where Hollywood was, but where
great art was, too. Robert Irwin believed that by using simple shapes and minimal forms, he
could make art that was made only of the bare essentials. Carl Andre was another one of these
artists. Andre used stone, metal and wood to create sculptures in simple grid patterns, like a
checkerboard. His art was displayed on the floor. [You may choose here to show students an
example of a Carl Andre piece.]
Transition: Our next artist appreciated Andre’s art work and wanted to duplicate it, but also
wanted to put her own spin on it. She made a Carl Andre-inspired sculpture not out of wood,
metal, or stone, but something very different. She experimented making art out of something
you might put on your face. Let’s see if you can guess what she made her floor sculpture out of.
Please watch your step as we enter the next gallery.
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STOP 5: NEO-CONCEPTUAL
** Please Note: Below are two options for touring the Neo-Conceptual section. Please
keep your tour stop to the 5-10 minute limit to allow for effective tour flow. **
Rachel Lachowicz, Homage to Carl Andre (After Carl Andre’s Magnesium and Zinc, 1969),
1991
 What could this sculpture on the floor be made out of? Remember I said it is something
you put on your face…
 If you could step on this sculpture (but you can’t!), what would happen to the material
underneath your shoe?
 What is the dominant color that you see in this artwork?
 What feelings do you associate with this color?
Many artists in this period wanted to retell the story of art in a different way. Art has a history just
like cultures have histories, or countries have their histories. Some believe that the history of art
is very one-sided. The story of art often omits the voices of women and other minorities. Rachel
Lachowicz is a female artist who wanted to remake Carl Andre’s sculpture in her own voice.
 With this in mind, why do you think she decided to make her artwork out of lipstick?
 What message could Rachel Lachowicz be attempting to convey about art history by
using lipstick in a work of art?
Transition: When you open a history book, Rachel Lachowicz wants you to recognize that there
may be other historic voices that aren’t being told. In our next piece, an artist wants us to think
about the thousands of books in a library, and how we go about locating each individual book.
David Bunn, It’s Too Frightening for Me, 1996
Before there was the Internet, and you could look books up on Amazon from the comfort of your
desk chair, people went into the library and looked through drawers and drawers of cards to find
books. Each card had information about an individual book held at that library.
 How do you find books in a library today?
[In 1990 artist David Bunn took possession of two million cards in the Los Angeles Central
Library's catalogue when the library moved to a digital catalogue.]
 What are we looking at here?
 Can someone please read what this says?
 What does this poem mean to you?
 Compare the top and bottom frames. What is the relationship?
David Bunn is experimenting with found poetry. He will pick up a random chunk of library cards
and put them in order to create interesting poetry. Did you make found poetry in your class?
What was it like? What kinds of diamante poems did you create? [Refers to the writing activity in
the Pre-Visit Packet.]
 How do you think your experience in a library would be different if you had to use a card
catalogues versus a computer to look up books?
 What other everyday acts have become computerized?
 What do we gain from this automation? What do we lose?
 If Bunn inherited his materials and “borrowed” his poetry, is he the artist of this artwork? Why or
why not?
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CONCLUSION
All the artists in this exhibition are reacting to life in California from their own perspectives and
the times in history in which they lived or live. They have all experimented with artistic media
and subject matter in order to help us recognize the incredible diversity of everything that art
can be. Think about the artwork you just saw. What piece did you like best? Did this artist
successfully communicate a message to you? What was that message?
I want to thank you so much for sharing this exhibition with me. I hope you will look around you
with new eyes and seek new and different ways of expressing yourself. You helped me see
things about the artwork I had never thought of before. I realize that we didn’t even scratch the
surface of all the art in this exhibition. We are giving your teacher free passes for you to visit us
again with your family. Next time you visit, you can complete your Gallery Activities, and you will
be the tour guide! Be sure to share your observations with your family.
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