Fig: Students:inside in front of John Chamberlain, Grandma's Hat, 1981, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Photo: DASMAXIMUM
German and maths at the art museum? Instead of copying the blackboard picture in the classroom, the 5a pupils at LSH Ising were allowed to be creative themselves at DASMAXIMUM with the American artist John Chamberlain. The children had to find their own titles for "Grandma's Hat". Their imagination ranged from "Chaos" to car associations to pieces of music such as "Kumbaya, my Lord" and were transformed into correspondingly creative new titles.
The fluorescent tubes and the light from Dan Flavin's "European Couples" were broken down into basic geometric shapes in the subsequent maths lesson, and the distances that the light travels in space through the arrangement of the two, four, six or eight foot long fluorescent tubes were investigated.
The experiment has shown how important it is not only to learn the material by heart, but also to experience it in an applicable way. Art can help us to recognise and understand these areas of application.