Last spring, the Getty Museum announced a worldwide art challenge to its social media followers. The Los Angeles museum invited people to reimagine works of art using everyday materials from their homes and posingas the subjects themselves. People from all over the world saw the Getty Museum Challenge as an invitation to get wildly creative.
Many participants incorporated found objects ranging from dry pasta representing locks of hair to toilet paper rolls forming the shape of an old fashioned powdered wig. People of all ages used the challenge as an opportunity to both make art and become the art.
The participant in the image above recreates Pablo Picasso’s 1937 Portrait of Dora Maar. To imitate the colorful, distorted figure, she paints highlights, shadows, and shapes directly onto her skin. Like Picasso, she uses arbitrary colors, or colors that don't relate to the subject's real appearance. She poses behind cutouts that mimic the clothing Picasso painted in his signature Cubist style. They appear as geometric shapes and interlocking planes. She includes many details, adding the chair and striped background, and painting her nails red to match the subject.
Now it’s your turn! What famous artwork would you reimagine? Select your found materials, get into character, and strike a pose for the camera.