Yes, you can SEE music. Take a ride in the video below.
© DoodleChaos

At Home with Art and Culture

If you find you’re still in your pajamas at three in the afternoon, or if you have started your own bar crawl by putting a glass of wine in every room of your home, or if you have finished all of Netflix, or you have cleaned every closet … twice, STOP!

It’s time to become a virtual traveler and explore the world’s art and culture in the comfort of your home. The physical doors of arts venues are shuttered during this time of “sheltering in place,” but artistic organizations and artists are rising to the challenge.

Start by SEEING Beethoven’s 5th by Doodle Chaos, where animated line riders show you the beauty of fearless flying, flipping, and falling in rhythm, including the power of pauses between notes.

If video does not display, watch it here.

And keep going—it’s easy! Now, more than ever, the Internet brings the arts to you.

An at-home re-creation of “The Absinthe Drinker” (original on the left)
Can you name the painter?
© Erick Paraiso/John Pichel

Old Masters . . . and New

At this important moment in history, organizations are responding quickly to fill the arts community void by adding creative ideas for arts engagement to their other online opportunities.

To keep your artistic spirit alive and well, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles launched an artistic challenge that has inspired people around the world. Based on a Dutch project (Between Art and Quarantine), the museum asks you recreate an artwork from the Getty collection using whatever you can find in your confined world at home. Take a look at the Getty twitter feed or the Dutch Instagram site.

The J. Paul Getty Museum challenges you to recreate work by the masters
(for example, Van Gogh’s Irises) with things you find at home.
(Courtesy of the J. Paul Getty Trust and Cara Jo O’Connell)

In addition, the Getty is providing access to art books, online exhibits, podcasts, and videos. Discover the current exhibits of Michelangelo, the Bauhaus, and Ancient Palmyra.

Virtual Visits to Museums

Although virtual museum tours were around long before the corona crisis (note that Google Arts and Culture has put more than 2,500 museum and gallery collections online), the well-known museums in the U.S. are all offering additional online culture to be enjoyed while observing your “stay-at-home” mandate. Here is a sampling.

New York’s Museum of Modern Art has temporarily closed its doors,
but has expanded its online opportunities.
© iStock/rarrarorro

New York Museum of Modern Art

The Museum of Modern Art in New York presents a new virtual art experience each week, such as exhibit openings and home movies. Take a look at the schedule, which includes upcoming exhibits of Félix Fénéon, Donald Judd, and Dorothea Lange.

You can also participate in online art projects, such as coloring the tracings of Louise Lawler. Download the drawings here, and then post your finished work on social media with the tag #DrawingwithMoMA.

#DrawingwithMoma
© Meredith Mullins

New York Metropolitan Museum

New York’s Metropolitan Museum offers a range of its publications free online for a limited time, as well as a digital digest that includes videos, articles, concerts, and art-making activities for the whole family.

Washington’s National Gallery of Art: Silent for the moment
© Meredith Mullins

National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.)

The National Gallery of Art has virtual tours and video introductions to the current exhibits (Degas and the Opera, Raphael, and Early European Open-Air Painting), as well as a tour of the highlights of its collection. The museum also provides lessons and activities for home study for all ages, including special resources for kids.

Time for art projects at home, inspired by the great art museums
© iStock/Pokec

National Portrait Gallery (Washington, D.C.)

The National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. offers seven online exhibitions. Don’t forget to visit the popular portraits of Michelle Obama, Jacqueline Kennedy, and Eleanor Roosevelt, as you virtually tour the “First Ladies Exhibit.”

Jacqueline Kennedy from the National Portrait Gallery “First Ladies” Exhibit
© Estate of Yousuf Karsh

Digital art workshops are also offered free of charge, as are coloring pages of some of the famous portraits in the collection for your own artistic expression.

You’ll find virtual tours, videos, and interviews at many other museums in the U.S., including the Museum of Fine Arts (Houston), Boston Museum of Fine Arts (featuring Ancient Nubia and Gender Bending Fashion), High Museum of Art (Atlanta), Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago (featuring El Greco), and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

The new meditation: coloring. Try your hand at coloring a drawing of Frida Kahlo.
(Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery)

Oh I See: The Times Are Changing

In these tumultuous times, seeking solace, connection, and inspiration through arts and culture is a natural path. Unlike the current toilet paper shortage, there will always be more than enough opportunity for the virtual traveler to see the best that the world has to offer in this expanded community of visual arts.

Let the journey begin.

Stay tuned next week at OIC Moments to discover what the virtual traveler might find in the world of music and the performing arts.

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.