What happens when you pair three-to-six year-old children with esteemed art-world figures to play an art-historical guessing game?
For our final episode of 2020, we decided to find out.
We invited three of the most respected cultural leaders in the world—Naima Keith, the vice president of education and public programs at LACMA; Carolina Miranda, a Los Angeles Times columnist who covers art, architecture, and urban design; and Martin Kemp, the foremost Leonardo da Vinci scholar in the world—to be paired with some really adorable kids for a virtual guessing game.
Over Zoom, each illustrious guest was introduced to their diminutive teammate, who was shown a series of (very) famous artworks from throughout the history of art. The children were asked to describe what they saw in each work—and the grown-ups were responsible for guessing the artist and title.
Have you ever had a four-year-old try to explain a Jackson Pollock drip painting? A Damien Hirst shark sculpture? A Grant Wood piece? We didn't think so.