Football meets MoMA
Chloe Hawkins
Tiki Barber poses with eager, JPMorgan-clad students at MoMA.
What happens when you mix a pro-football player, a passionate interest in the arts, the new MoMA and 60 NYC youth? You get Tiki Barber, player for the NY Giants talking about his own work and introducing the museum to a group of students on the inaugural day of Exploring the Modern, a new program, (sponsored by the JP Morgan Chase Foundation) that offers educational tours to NYC students. Or do you? Judging from the headline of the press release, "Giants Star To Showcase Some Of His Own Works Of Art as Part of a JPMorgan Chase Educational Event," I arrived that Monday thinking that Mr. Barber must be an artist or at least an arts enthusiast. I expected to write a story about a football player’s arts experience and passion, as shared with public school students.
Alas, when I arrived to find a group of 60 seventh and eighth graders bedecked in t-shirts printed with JP Morgan Chase Foundation, all surrounded by a sparkling ring of cameras, agents, museum guards, teachers and MoMA administrators, I began to suspect my questions for Mr. Barber regarding his personal creative influences and the importance of art education may not be appropriate for this event. The students were addressed in sound bytes by a few administrators, including the President of the Foundation himself and the MoMA’s Director of Education, who all acknowledged or highlighted the generosity of the JP Morgan Chase Foundation in realizing this new and wonderful program. Lastly, Tiki Barber took the podium and offered a few brief words about the power of art to help people connect with a certain point in time. He neither spoke about nor "showcased" any works from his own collection and although he joked about trying his hand at being an artist after football, when I later asked him about the seriousness of that comment, he replied, "No, no probably not, I don’t have an artistic eye."
Exploring the Modern certainly seems like a valuable and noteworthy program, giving students the opportunity to engage with and learn about the arts, but why does the MoMA and the JP Morgan Chase Foundation need to hire a pro-football player to get the press to show up for the event? And what happens to the true merits of the program when the first day of educational tours is turned into a press circus? From what I observed, the event ended up being much more about football than modern art. When the students had the opportunity to ask questions of Mr. Barber, every single question was about football. Though Mr. Barber responded graciously to their questions, he did very little to turn the conversation back to their reason for being there, or demonstrate that he had an interest in and dedication to the arts. The less Mr. Barber demonstrated a personal connection to the arts, the more he appeared to be just a big name hired to draw the press to the kickoff day of educational tours, giving the JP Morgan Chase Foundation the opportunity to advertise their sponsorship, even on the backs of the students themselves.
And yet, if this event is able to draw any new interest or exposure to art to a student who has never before set foot in a museum, perhaps something was done. And let us hope that they return. Myself? I left the MoMA feeling disappointed and suckered by the bogus promise in the press release into having believed that the event would be interesting. Next time I’ll know to pay more attention to the part that mentions corporate sponsorship and stay home, saving my time for a story that has more to do with the arts.
