On Monday, November 11, Poly art students ventured off campus to the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in Midtown Manhattan for a field trip. The art courses in attendance were Visual Arts Teacher DanielHerwitt’s Advanced Painting and Drawing Portfolio and Visual Arts Teacher Adina Scherer’s Digital Photography and Advanced Photography Portfolio. Upon arrival, tickets were handed out to Herwitt’s students and. Scherer’s Advanced Photography Portfolio students to enter the museum. As they entered, they split up into groups to explore and observe. Advanced Painting and Drawing Portfolio students were encouraged to focus mainly on the visual art, but they were all free to visit any exhibit within their groups. While these courses were in the museum, the Digital Photography classes took photos on their digital camera in areas around the museum. 

As the Digital Photography classes transitioned from taking pictures to exploring the museum, they were instructed to focus on the Robert Frank exhibit. Robert Frank was an American photographer known for capturing and developing photos that depicted a nuanced and divergent perspective of the world.. Scherer’s Digital Photography class centers around lessons on point of view and storytelling when capturing pictures, so these students were given an assignment to reflect that. The assignment was a variation of questions that asked students to think about the photographer’s perspective and intent when they were taking the photo. Once this assignment was completed and turned into Scherer, students could roam around the museum freely until it was time to leave. 

This trip to the Museum of Modern Art was a great opportunity for the art students to engage with art in the real world. Herwitt complies, as he thinks it is “important to see as much art as possible when you’re engaged in visual arts. And that’s how you learn; it’s by looking at other artists and working through them.” Gia Agresta ’27 said the trip changed how she captured the world around her by affecting “how [she] viewed things in [her] day to day because somethings in the museum seemed ordinary from afar, but when you look closely and pay attention to details, you can find unique things you didn’t see before.”