Exhibiting Artists
John James Audubon, Nina Boesch, Emilie Clark, Sarah Hardesty, Charley Harper, Gail LeBoff, Tamar Mogendorff, Vik Muniz, Perch Interactive, Amy Jean Porter, Eric Rhein, Hunt Slonem, Kathryn Spence, Fred Tomaselli
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Now commonly used to refer to a “short communication of 140 characters,” prior to 2006, “tweet” was used to describe the chirp of a bird, generally perceived as a sweet or happy sound.
In New York City, we witness more and more pedestrians striding through life with heads buried in smartphones. We tweet, we text, we email on the go. The simple act of looking around as we go about our daily journey is being lost to an ever more fragmented and hectic contemporary society.
All the artworks included in Tweet come from a similar starting point – that of careful observation of nature, specifically of birds. To identify and study at great and near distances, with quiet observation and in fleeting moments – this kind of looking is encouraged by these works. As part of the exhibition, CMA asks viewers to use their technology to come together in shared games around bird spotting, or to simply put the gadgets away and draw from nature.
The exhibition Tweet asks us to pause, reflect, and remember a simple act that is available to everyone. Look around you, enjoy nature, and see the birds.
Programs at Children’s Museum of the Arts are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
Created by CMA Teaching Artists in conjunction with arts education professionals, CMA curriculum guides draw connections between interdisciplinary themes in contemporary art exhibits and classroom learning by using contextual information and reflective practices.