[ GUNST ]

Wie man den Kindern die Kunst erklärt | Help your child to understand art
[pls. scroll down for english version]

"Wie man den Kindern die Kunst erklärt" ist eine kleine Broschüre im A5-Format. Wie der (Unter-)Titel – "helfen sie ihrem kind, die kunst zu verstehen" – bereits nahe legen kann, ist der Text als Ratgeber für Eltern gedacht. In diesem Fall richtet er sich insbesondere an Eltern, die selbst KünstlerInnen, KritikerInnen, KuratorInnen, KustodInnen, GaleristInnen, SammlerInnen oder anderweitig in den Kunstbetrieb involviert sind. Er kann sich jedoch auch für Eltern als nützlich erweisen, die planen, gemeinsam mit ihren Kindern Kunstausstellungen zu besuchen oder befürchten müssen, zufällig in eine Situation zu geraten, in denen ihre Kinder – mit Kunst konfrontiert – fragen: "Mama… Papa… Was ist das….?"

Hintergrundinformationen: siehe unten.

[english]

"Wie man den Kindern die Kunst erklärt" is a small brochure. As its (sub-)title, "helfen sie ihrem kind, die kunst zu verstehen" ("Help your child to understand art"), might already suggest, the text itself is conceived as a kind of advice for parents who are themselves artists, critics, curators, collectors or otherwise involved in the field of arts. Maybe it is even useful for those planning to visit art exhibitions together with their children, or find themselves by accident in a situtation confronted with a work of art, while their children start to ask "mom… dad, can you tell me…".

background information

The text is based on a brochure handed out by the German society of undertakers to give people advice how to tell children about death. While working on an exhibition dealing with death in contemporary culture, I visited an undertaker's establishment, where – amoungst other material – I found a little brochure, "help your children to understand death". Reading it, I felt immediately there were astonishing parallels to the problems I used to be faced with in my own work: the field of art and critique… a contested zone, hounted by killer phrases and questions as well as by existential(ist) problems… people claiming the death of the author as well as the death of art… others blaming the critics for being the death of art… not to name all those situations you are confronted with when trying to tell people about reasons why you ("an intelligent / nice / well educated person like you") are involved with something like art at all.

Up till now, there were three different versions/editions of "helfen sie ihrem kind, die kunst zu verstehen":
The first version/editions of "helfen sie ihrem kind, die kunst zu verstehen" was released in 1995 as a digital text on a 3,5" disc dedicated to Stefan Beck, an artist based in Frankfurt/Main who asked everybody he invited to his birthday party to provide a piece of work on a 3,5" disc as a present.
The second version/edition of "helfen sie ihrem kind, die kunst zu verstehen" was done as a little booklet (a print version of the text on paper coloured in differend shades of red, enriched with illustrations, consisting of two pictures taken from a "drawing-by-numbers"-set for children and two schematic logos, a small bucket with brushes and a painter's palette, each appearing repeatedly as inserts on transparent film backed by an empty page between the text pages, and bound as a ring binder with covers of red carton), and given away as a birthday present for Kasper König in 1997 in occasion of his birhday party.
A third version of "helfen sie ihrem kind, die kunst zu verstehen" was released under the title VIATICO (viatico arte per i bambini / viatico arte for children) in march 2000 as my contribution to the exhibition project VIATICO DI ARTE E CRITICA, curated by Roberto Annecchini, Patrizia Mania and Domenico Scudero at the CHANGE studio d'arte contemporanea / associazione culturale project room at Rome, Italy.
For more information on this third version and the exhibition VIATICO DI ARTE E CRITICA see the related entry.

further material

online/ready-to-print pdf-version in preparation

metadaten:
GUNSTprojekt – title: Wie man den Kindern die Kunst erklärt – year: 1995 (vs. 01), 1997 (vs. 02), 2000 (vs. 03)
object: text object on 3,5'' HD (vs. 01), booklet (vs. 02), text object on paper (vs. 03)
generated by: miss.gunst / verena kuni