Co-curated with children from six months old to age eight from across the Front Range, the upcoming exhibition Clyfford Still, Art, and the Young Mind, reveals how children think about art. Designed to engage both children and adults, Young Minds will be on view from March 11 to August 7, 2022 at the Clyfford Still Museum (CSM).

The Museum’s first four galleries chart the artistic journey of Clyfford Still in a chronological narrative, and includes artworks selected with families and children in mind and hung lower on the walls to account for the height of young visitors. The remaining galleries feature Clyfford Still, Art, and the Young Mind, the first show CSM curated in collaboration with the community.

Using existing research about what kinds of art children like at different points in their development, co-curators Bailey H. Placzek and Nicole Cromartie organized the exhibition into five gallery themes: high contrast, scale, pattern, the world around us, and color. Then, they asked local children to select and arrange their favorite artworks, share their perspectives for the gallery and audio content, and help to design interactive activities.

Young Minds includes various interactive and interpretive elements, including a behind-the-scenes video with clips of the infant co-curators selecting paintings for the exhibition by staring, pointing, vocalizing, and grabbing reproductions of their favorite Still paintings. Pre-kindergarten students helped create an interactive art projection activity in one of the galleries and inspired an installation of prisms on one of the outdoor terraces. Young co-curators also assisted in developing audio and video experiences in English, Spanish, and American Sign Language. Second-grade students from two schools also selected and arranged archival images.

CSM staff walked through the galleries with some of the young co-curators to see how they interacted with the space. The Museum used the feedback to make its building more welcoming and add comfortable areas with floor cushions for people of all ages to relax and enjoy the art from different perspectives. Young co-curators also shaped the exhibition’s wall text, which will be bilingual in English and Spanish, more accessible, and encourage visitor interaction and conversation.