The Buffalo Project

Grades K-12

Instructions

Mangold was commissioned to create a large-scale translucent windowed entry in several colors for the new Buffalo Federal Courthouse. It will be a ten-story tower off of Niagara Square and is only ten minutes from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, and its anticipated opening date is in the middle of 2010. 

This is a great opportunity to enhance your students’ learning by adding that art isn’t always seen in a museum. It’s a great opportunity to show them a new and exciting piece by Robert Mangold!

Visit the Court House site near Niagara Square in downtown Buffalo with your class or learn more at ProjectBuffalo.com.

Discussion

• What happens inside a courthouse?
• Why do communities invite artists to make art inside a public building?
• Why do you think artists are important to their communities?
• Why do you think Robert Mangold’s work is or is not appropriate for a courthouse? Older students could have a debate with one side arguing why it is appropriate and one side arguing why it is not.

Activity
Have students design their own work of art for a courthouse. Have them make an argument why their designs should be chosen when they present their design to the class.

Mangold’s Life
Robert Mangold was born in North Tonawanda, New York in 1937. He visited the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in his formative years and was inspired to become an artist. Mangold utilizes the fundamental and the essential in his works: line, color, shape, and texture. He was one of the first artists in the 1960s identified as working in a category called Minimalism.

An example of a work of this type by him in the collection of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery is Four Squares within a Square III, 1974. In that work, can you find the five squares?Answer: There are lines that make up four different squares. Three are easy to find. The fourth is a black line very close to the edge of the canvas—can you find it? And the square canvas they are within is a fifth square.

For Older Students: Have students research Minimalism. Who were the artists? What did they think they were accomplishing?

About the Courthouse
The catalog for this exhibition contains information about and photographs of Mangold’s work, and essays including one on Courthouse Commissions’ process of selecting Mangold as the artist for the project, and an interview with the artist. If you are interested in purchasing the exhibition catalogue for Robert Mangold: Beyond the Line: Paintings and Project 2000-2008, it will be available in the Albright-Knox Art Gallery Store during the exhibition.