Identity is a theme that we like to teach here at MoMA because it's something that students can relate to. It's something that artists have explored for many years. Identity is about who we are, about how we see ourselves in the world. It's something that's incredibly complex yet it's something we can all relate to and it's something that can be very public, but it can also be deeply personal. Once I know that I want to teach with the theme of identity, I'll come up with a sub-theme or an essential question. The sub-theme or the essential question is just a way for me to refine the focus for the lesson and for the experience with the students. There's a lot of different ways that I could go. I might want to look at how artists represent sense of self through self-portraiture. How an artist represents others through portraiture. I could also look at individual versus group identity. I could look at ways that artists use representational and non-representational ways to explore identity. It's a rich theme so it's really important that I come up with a focus that will then allow me to pick artworks that really articulate the ideas that I want to hit with the students. One of the artworks that I like to apply the theme of identity to in our collection is Gold Marilyn by Andy Warhol. When you bring students to this artwork, it's something that they often recognize right away. But they often have a lot of questions about the way that Andy Warhol has chosen to represent her. He chose to do something really specific, which is he's got this very iconic, well-known, public image of her as the subject, yet it's sort of a small portion of this very large canvas. She's sort of floating in this incredibly brilliant gold background. This is an artwork that he created shortly after she died. So in creating this artwork, he's really given us this very angelic view of her at a time where most people were learning about these other struggles that she had. So I think it really exemplifies this idea of the struggle between public and private and how you can represent that. Pablo Picasso's, Girl Before Mirror, is another artwork that I like to teach with, with the theme of identity. In this artwork, he's showing us a person, someone he knew well, a woman, named, Marie Therese. But, he's also showing us this representation of her, this reflection of her in the mirror. And surrounding her is this very specific background that often was a pattern that he used to represent his presence in the work of art. So now knowing his relationship with this subject, this inclusion of him in this background, and this reflection of her, the viewer is really left with a lot of questions which I think is one of the best things about a work of art like this. Because it's always great to really look deeply and really consider these things, and then kind of comeback to ourselves and think about the way we perceive ourselves in the world. Identity is a great topic to explore with your students and I think it's an opportunity to really connect with them on a deeply personal level. So, don't be afraid to have certain conversations. Just have fun with it and trust your instincts.