Art students tour Los Angeles-area art museums

April 5, 2012

Sophia Redfern
Reporter

Advanced Placement Art History and Advanced Art Portfolio students arrived early Friday morning at Los Angeles International Airport for their annual tour of local museums.

“The trip has been going on for 11 years now,” art history teacher Sunnie Evers said. “It has become hugely popular with a lot of positive feedback and I’m able to use the museums as a review for my students while immersing them in culture.”

The students’ first stop was the modern and contemporary artwork Weisman House, collected by Frederick R. Weisman and now directed by his widow Billie Milam Weisman.

“I found the Weisman to be a bit much for my taste,” junior Haley Schwab said. “It was definitely shocking to see the art presented and displayed in such an untraditional way.”

At the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Evers quizzed students on styles and specific art pieces as part of the trips itinerary.

“It helps a lot to see all the pieces and be quizzed,” senior Katie Burke said. “Dr. Evers quizzed us by covering the information panel next to the piece so we have a visual review of pieces that could be on the AP.”

Art history teacher Sonnie Evers gives a lecture to the class about still life painting “Banquet Still Life” by Dutch artist Abraham van Beyeren at the Los Angeles Center of Modern Art. SOPHIA REDFERN | The Broadview

The Museum of Contemporary Art, the only museum in Los Angeles dedicated exclusively to contemporary art, allowed students to review art they had first learned about back in August.

“It was mandatory for AP Art History students to go on this trip as a review,” senior Isabella Holland said, “but I was excited to go see new art and be able to view pieces in person that we had studied in the classroom.”

“The trip gave me a chance to see how others presently and in the past viewed art,” senior Dakota Chamberlin, one of the two Advanced Art Portfolio students, said. “The subject matter of different eras was the biggest reason for this, seeing subject matter shift from religious to more individual and emotional.”

Saturday night the group attended a performance of Johann Sebastian Bach’s “St. John’s Passion” at Disney Concert Hall, designed by internationally-known architect Frank Gehry.

At the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center on Sunday, students viewed and discussed the collection of European paintings, drawings, sculpture, illuminated manuscripts, decorative arts, and European and American photographs.

The museum tour ended with a visit to Getty Villa in Malibu for a viewing of the “Aphrodite and the Gods of Love” exhibit.

“I absolutely loved both the Getty Center and Villa,” Schwab said. “The art is spectacular and I feel really prepared for the AP now.”