to begin

Ask your students to spend 1-2 minutes quietly examining the image. When they have had enough time to digest the artwork, it’s time to explore further through quality questions.

As you lead this discussion, accept any response! Praise your students for sharing their thoughts. Paraphrase your pupil’s answer using your own words to make sure you’re both on the same page. When you’ve come to the end of their lines of thought, ask another question!

This exercise is meant to serve as a casual discussion. Feel free to add or omit questions so that the conversation can proceed organically. Remember to use inquiry based language when forming questions ( i.e. “What could be happening?” rather than “What is happening?)

Make sure that your students have pencils and paper while they explore this artwork, so they can work out their thoughts through words, lists, and drawings!

quality questions

1. What do you see? What might be going on in this sculpture?

2. What materials has the artist chosen to use here?

   1. Why do you think these materials may have been chosen?

   2. How might the sculpture change if it were made out of different materials? Plastic? Wood? Glass?

3. The artist likes to source his materials locally. Why do you think he chose these rocks and beams? 

   1. How does knowing this change how you feel about this sculpture? 

   2. How might it be different if these materials came from somewhere else?

4. How does this sculpture make you feel? Why?

5. How does each individual metal piece relate to the others around it?

6. Focus on finding the places where the steel i-beams touch each other. How are they achieving the balance that we’re seeing?

   1. Discuss structural integrity and distribution of weight. 

7. How do you think the artist achieved the current state of balance that we’re seeing now?

   1. What might cause that balance to be disrupted?

8. What if…

   1. The beam in the center was ten feet longer??

   2. One (or both) of the rocks were 10 times smaller???

   3. If some (very badly behaved) person were to WALK on the beams?

the big idea

How does this object relate to the big idea?

Key Information:

1. Tension: a balance maintained in an artistic work between opposing forces or elements + either of two balancing forces causing or tending to cause extension. 

   1. Use a rubber band to demonstrate. When the rubber band is not being used, there is no tension. It’s completely loose and relaxed. When you stretch the rubber band, you are adding tension to the structure of the rubber band--causing it to stress and elongate. 

2. Balance: physical equilibrium produced by even distribution of weight on each side of the vertical axis.

Quotes:

1. “Davila’s sculptural work focuses on combining seemingly antagonistic materials whose strengths and forms balance to create a harmonious whole, his creations thus transformed into a kind of portrayal of our doubts and contradictions.”

2. “I’m interested in elements, like rocks, boulders, and stones that are the most primitive forms of construction but also of sculptural work. The positioning of certain rocks is a way of knowing there was a human intention of some kind. Something simple can be very strong. And it’s a way of talking about art history, and the oldest, purest form of creation in a way.”

3. “Art should broaden the scope of intuition, freedom, madness, impracticality, and wonder over reason.”

Remember to allow your students to derive their own narratives from this artwork before revealing any information about the artist!

equal voicing opportunity

Ask your students to personify each of the components of this object, and to imagine themselves as one of the pieces. While they take time to consider this, encourage them to draw the sculpture, or to write about each component.

Once they have had plenty of time, start a discussion by asking questions such as the following:

1. Which part of this sculpture did you assign to yourself?

2. Why do you think you related to this object the most?

3. How do you think it feels to be this object?

4. Can you relate these feelings to anything else you experience in your life?

art making activity

Tension Sculptures:

Challenge students to create a small-scale tension sculpture inspired by Jose Davila’s precarious hanging beam sculptures. Consider forces of gravity, balance, and tension when selecting objects.

Supplies Needed:

This activity can easily be completed with objects in your classroom! At the museum, we used wood blocks, small plastic toys, pipe cleaners, and rubber bands. We then implemented parameters that allowed students to use a limited number of each type of object:

1. Must consist of 4-6 pieces of wood (any size or shape)

2. Must include only 2 plastic objects

3. Must use 2 forms of adhesive (using rubber bands and pipe cleaners as adhesive, rather than glue or tape, helps students consider balance even more!)

4. Must be at least 4 inches tall

You can allow your students to build freely, or change these rules to fit the supplies from your classroom!