Field trip to Museo Joaquín Torres-García & Museo Nacional de Artes Visuales (MNAV)

Location: Museo Joaquín Torres-García & Museo Nacional de Artes Visuales, Montevideo.

Goals & objectives: To extend and enhance classroom learning in the field of both Uruguayan Constructive Universalism and American Avant-Garde art. During the field trip, you and your group will be required to document a report on both development of the tasks proposed, collect relevant information on the museum facilities, art works and sketch a Constructive Universalist sculpture.

Materials: Folder, notebook, hard surface as a clipboard for note-taking and sketching, recording device like pens, pencils, markers, and paper. Handheld devices as tablets, cellphone or digital cameras.

Assignments:

a) Create a detailed account of the main events that will take place throughout the field trip. Mention both the time and the place each event takes place. There should be a minimum of 30 entries.

b) Take notes on the guide's descriptions at Museo Torres-García. These will be eventually used in your Art portfolio. To facilitate your work you may use your Spanish to write as much information as you can. You will have some extra classes to translate your notes to English.

c) If allowed, take non-flash photos to at least 10 paintings of Torres-García's artworks. Remember to include their names, date & place of creation, size and materials.

d) Draw a map of the different rooms / levels of the museum and describe them thoroughly. Which are its permanent exhibitions? On which floor are they located? What is its latest changing exhibition? What memorabilia is displayed for sale? Where can you purchase it?

e) When arriving at the MNAV, explore the sections of the building and devise a map. Devise a map of the MNAV. Indicate its facilities and the art works arranged in its garden.

f) Use your cellphone / tablet to find out the history of the building that houses the museum. You are expected to answer the following questions:

•  When was  the "Museo de Bellas Artes", now known as "Museo Nacional de Artes Visuales" inaugurated?
•  Has it always been located in the same area of Montevideo? If not, where was it?
•  How many art artifacts did it use to hold?
•  Who was Clorindo Testa? How is he closely related to the current MNAV museum?
•  Describe the museum's library. Why is it regarded as a remarkable facility?
•  Which distinctive foreign artists have displayed their works at MNAV?
•  Which directors have run the MNAV?  Who runs it nowadays?

g) Find Constructive Universalist artifacts within the MNAV. Take non-flash photos and register their names, date & place of creation, size and materials. Which ones belong to Joaquín Torres-García? Which ones to his students'?

h) Sketch Torres-García's Cosmic monument. Indicate which symbols in its grid are Pre-Columbian and which ones are of Greek origin.