The Art of Adventure

In a gallery illuminated by natural light, Melina Hsiao studies three black-and-white stills. She searches for clues to the subjects’ identities--in the clothing, the poses and the backgrounds. After several minutes, she steps back, confident in her conclusions, and takes notes on a clipboard.

Melina isn’t an art expert. She’s not even an art student--yet. She’s a 5-year-old solving a puzzle, one of more than a dozen kids on a recent Saturday Art Adventure at the Getty Center.

Art Adventure, offered in English and Spanish, is a newly established family program aimed at helping kids better understand the museum and provides another fun activity on the weekends. The free, docent-led tours begin at 2 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays, following regular storytelling sessions at 11 a.m., noon and 1 p.m. They start in the museum entrance hall.

“Families want to know there is something they can just show up for,” says Diane Brigham, head of education programs at the Getty. “We had a great number of family programs [in the past], but families had to book ahead of time.”

This Sunday, Art Adventures will depart three times instead of once (at 12:30, 2 and 3:45 p.m.) as part of the activities planned for the Family Festival, held four times a year. The free, daylong festival also features live music and dance performances, storytelling, art workshops and gallery activities.

The Hsiaos are frequent visitors to the museum, but on a recent Saturday they took their first Art Adventure.

“[Melina] loves the family room,” says Karin Hsiao, referring to the Getty’s special room filled with kid-oriented computers, craft projects and dress-up games, “but the Art Adventure is a good way to get her into the gallery.”

Chris Robinson, 9, doesn’t need any coaxing to explore an art gallery. His mom, Mi Robinson, says it was Chris’ idea for her to bring him and his 4-year-old brother, Tim, to the Getty.

“I like to see art,” Chris explains. “I like to draw. I still need to learn how to make a Picasso,” he adds, gesturing how he might put one eye at the top of an imaginary painting and another eye at the bottom.

From the time Art Adventure leader Nicole Cohen briefs the young gallery-goers on the basic rules of behavior to the time they enter the third gallery 45 minutes later, the kids are attentive and eager to participate. Especially this month, when the topic is heroes and the No. 1 guy is Hercules.

Not quite the blond and animated muscleman currently on video shelves, the Getty’s Hercules is still buff and looks adequately heroic in marble and perched on a pedestal.

The kids are encouraged to share ideas of what makes a hero. They discuss how to recognize those qualities in other artworks in the next two galleries on the tour. The kids also get to suggest whom they consider a hero.

“A policeman,” says Chris.

“A dentist,” says Britt Hopkins, 6. (Britt’s daddy, we find out later when she announces the recipient of her Family Hero award, is a dentist.)

Eva Hopkins, the first-grader’s mother, is pleased with their first Art Adventure. “She’s taking an art class,” says Hopkins, of Manhattan Beach. “We’re going to have to do this more often.”

*

By the time Cohen asks the kids to look at the portraits in the final gallery and decide what the subjects do and why they might be heroes, the kids are all warmed up and enthusiastically raise their hands to offer answers.

Never mind that the photographs are labeled--the kids are too engrossed in the artwork (or too young to read) to look for a written answer.

For families who want to explore the Getty galleries on their own, there are family audio guides, which send the kids on a treasure hunt of sorts through the galleries. The Family Room off the courtyard also provides a book nook, games and activities for parents and children to do together, offering “a good way to help kids understand the decisions an artist makes,” Brigham says.

Brigham adds that there’s no real age limit for the Art Adventures because every family member can learn something, no matter how old or young. “Learning that museums can be fun places or that you can see works of art that might tell stories and inspire your imagination--I think even 3-year-olds get that.”

*

* Art Adventures, every Saturday-Sunday, 2 p.m. Getty Family Festival, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. this Sunday only. Free; parking $5 (based on availability). Getty Center, 1200 Getty Center Drive, L.A. (323) 440-7360, https://www.getty.edu.