美国国家公共电台 NPR Pop Up Exhibit Shows Off Childhood Art Of Contemporary Artists

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

Ever wandered through an art museum and let that classic critique slip from your lips - my kid could do that. The art world hears it all the time. And it's now inspired a new pop-up exhibit at the Underground Museum in Los Angeles this weekend. It's called "My Kid Could Do That." But it's not stealing any work for refrigerators. It showcases the work of well-known contemporary artists from when they were children, in the styles of pencil scribbles 1, crayons on paper and paper-mache puppets. Proceeds from the show go to benefit the nonprofit group ProjectArt. The organization promotes arts education in underserved communities across the United States. Kyle DeWoody of ProjectArt is the co-chair of this weekend's event, and she joins us on the line to talk about it. Hi.

KYLE DEWOODY: Hi. Thank you for having me.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Do these pieces foreshadow greatness?

DEWOODY: We have works from ages 4 to 17. So obviously with the works that are from the teenage years, you know, there's more refinement 2 there, and so it's easier to see that these kids had something. But some artists who are more conceptual artists - maybe didn't have a skilled hand - and so they just were making interesting things. But you can kind of see a seed of the work they're doing today and what they were playing around with at age 9, 10, 11.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Did the parents spot the talent of these artists young? I mean, I certainly look at my 5 year old and think, I don't know. I'm not sure she's an artist.

DEWOODY: There's a lot of parents who think everything their kid does is amazing, and they save everything. There are some artists here who thought they weren't good and so stopped making art for some years and then came back to it on a more conceptual level in college or grad school. But then there's artists like Jonas Wood - his piece was actually chosen to be the front cover image of a school calendar that year. So someone was taking note of his talent.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: As someone who works in the art world, how do you feel when you hear people say, my kid could do that?

DEWOODY: Well, I guess that they should read an art history book (laughter), you know, I mean, if they want to understand the wealth of investigation 3 that was going on with color and paint and palette and the tension between shapes and lines and that there was real intention there.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: What do you hope people take away from this?

DEWOODY: This is to raise awareness 4 for ProjectArt. So the main thing is about realizing that if these artists didn't have the opportunity to create this work, to have creative expression encouraged in art classes, to have access to materials and to kind of see if they had any skill, that we wouldn't have these incredible 5 artists making work today.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Kyle DeWoody at the Underground Museum in Los Angeles, thank you so much. It's only running through today.

DEWOODY: Thank you so much.