Enter the Student Tableau Halloween Contest!

Calling all artists, designers, museum lovers, and Halloween enthusiasts!

Show off your spooky spirit in the Johnson Museum Halloween Tableau Costume Contest. Craft a costume or staged photo that recreates a work of art from the Johnson Museum’s collection, and win a prize that is to die for.

A tableau vivant, French for “living picture,” is a recreation of a painting or sculpture that participants stage using their bodies, costumes, makeup, and/or other found objects.

Top: Warhol, Andy. Mrs. Edwards. 1980. Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Ithaca.
Bottom: Rina Hisajim

The Johnson is not currently open to visitors, but we are constantly searching for ways through which the Cornell community can appreciate the museum’s collection. We also recognize that with social distancing precautions in place, it will be difficult to celebrate Halloween as we know it. Don’t miss a chance to don a fa-boo-lous costume, and learn more about the museum’s most iconic works as well!

Top: Sherman, Cindy. Untitled, from the portfolio The Indomitable Spirit. 1979, 1989. Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Ithaca.
Bottom: McKenzie Carrier

You can select any work from the Johnson’s collection, visible at emuseum.cornell.edu/collections.

For a truly eerie-sistible submission, we’ll be looking for creativity, resemblance to the reference piece, topicality, school spirit, use of abstraction, incorporation of recycled materials/sustainability, and more.

Please follow the rules of the Cornell Behavioral Compact while participating in this contest.

Left: Ax Ortiz
Right: Sterner, Albert. *The Visitor.* 1902. Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Ithaca

Contest Rules

We are accepting submissions from Cornell Students from all colleges, and all years.
Recreate a piece of art within the Herbert F. Johnson Museum Collection. Here is a link to the Online Collection. https://emuseum.cornell.edu/collections
Take a Picture or Video of your recreation.
Make sure you have the consent of all the people in your image.
Fill out this Google Form. https://tinyurl.com/ydgbxcf5
Submissions due Nov. 1, 2020 at 11:59 pm.

Winner to be announced Nov 2.

Follow @hfjmuseum on Instagram to see the winning tableau, or check back on our blog!