DoubleX: Kid Made Modern Reviewed

My review (with DIY slideshow!) of Todd Oldham’s Kid Made Modern is up on DoubleX today. Needless to say, it is much less happy happy, joy joy than most of the other coverage. A sampling:

But to want your children to make something modern is to art-direct their elementary school experience. And isn’t that the opposite of creative? Aggressively aiming your children to follow in the footsteps of a pathbreaker like Anni Albers, when all they want to do is make a potholder, seems odd. I was also made uneasy by the underlying suggestion that my kid could do this. Imitating the masters is a very old-fashioned way to teach art appreciation. In Kid Made Modern, the project “Form + Fun” offers a downloadable template to help you cut the biomorphic forms of Isamu Noguchi’s 1940s sculpture out of poster board. Those forms came from European Surrealism and took Noguchi to stone-carving. The exercise seems pointless as play and derogatory to the artist.