PLAY:Toys+Age=Art

A Curatorial Framework

PLAY:Toys+Age=Art is a look at work by artists across Canada who use childhood toys and games as elements within their creative practice and at how those common and innocent memories can become changed through the effect of age and experience. Stuffed animals, fantastic stories about loveable monsters and childhood fairytales accompany gendered drawing toys and formative video games in the works in our newest exhibition. Sourced from early career and established artists in 5 provinces, these works in video, sculpture, painting and drawing, installation and performance are the best of a very large group of works I considered for this show. 

Canadian artist, author, designer, thinker and gadabout Douglas Coupland has played with toys through much of his visual art practice. His most obvious works might be the life-sized cast figures of toy army men seen in exhibitions around the world, however, it was a much smaller and quieter piece, shown at Latitude 53 in the The National Portrait Gallery show in 2010 that was the initiator of this exhibition. “Portrait of the Inside of my Head, Age Ten” is an elegant and sensitive photographic still life, in the vein of Flemish and Dutch still life paintings from the 17th century. Part memorial of lost boyhood and part snapshot of the birth of a man, this piece uses common childhood toys to emotively connect with past and present, artist and viewer. This piece brought about my reflection on the way other artists used our/their earliest playthings as fodder for adult communication.

                                       Portrait of the Inside of My Head, Age 10       

                                                 Douglas Coupland, 2010

Internationally there are numerous artists using similar ideas within their work as they comment, I believe, on a radically altered reality and lived experience over the past 2 decades. At a point in time where children can experiment with physics through “clean” and low risk computer simulations, creating complex systems and Rube Goldberg machine on iPads and smartphones, the amazing assemblages of American artist Sarah Sze seem almost quaint. Their size and complexity, and the tension of their construction belies a continual threat of erupting chaos that any model building, Lego constructing, Meccano fixing child knows intently. One wrong move and there is both catastrophe and a huge mess to clean up. There is no “reset” and no “save” to take you back to the point where you misjudged things.

Video games are now a ubiquitous player in every aspect of society - they are our babysitter, companion, sibling, lover. These complex bits of code started out as a black and white faux ping-pong games played with rudimentary computers and simple controllers to great distraction. Games have evolved almost past the real of reality at this point, but artists are using simpler times to reflect on societies need for these distractions and the way we model our lives after and around them. The cynicism and learned  failure of adulthood haunts Brooklyn-based artist Cory Arcangel’s game modifications. He leaves Mario stranded on a cube hanging in space in “Totally Fucked” 2003, removes all but one space invader who is armed with unlimited bullets and life in the 2004 Atari 2600 game mod “Space Invader”, and leaves competitors bowling an endless string of gutterballs on multiple gaming platforms from Atari to Game Cube in 2011’s “Various Self-Playing Bowling Games” shown at London’s Barbican Centre and the Whitney Museum of American Art. This last work shows the progression of gaming from less than 8-bit black and white to a still recognizably primitive Nintendo graphic from the era 2001-2006. New Zealander Pippin Barr - an artist and game designer currently based in Malta has several games that elude a deep sarcasm and ridicule for both the art world and the world of adult society in general. His hilarious "Hot Coffee" brings the viewer into the titillating ridiculosity of Leisure Suit Larry through the most mundane set of instructions for making the titular hot coffee at the request of a date. As all adults know, no matter the quality of the beverage, there is nothing funner happening later. Barr’s most notorious game skewers the six month long performance of Marina Abramovic in “The Artist is Present”, at MOMA in 2010, in re-enacting the experience of lining up in order to have a chance to sit with the artist and look her in the eye for as long as one desires. The real time game, played through a web browser, gives the player the same drawn out and possibly fruitless opportunity to be present with the artist - in all her 8 bit video richness - if only one can get to the end of the line. Because I tried first to play at 7PM on a Saturday night I was first in the line, which sadly started outside the locked doors of MOMA. It is always a long wait I suppose. 

Craig Le Blanc is a fixture in Calgary’s art community. Longtime technical assistant at University of Calgary, Craig recently also completed his MFA there and had a solo survey at the Art Gallery of Calgary. His work has long dealt with the psychology of play and of masculinity in life and in sport. He has altered simple and familiar forms such as the athletic cup, the 1976 Trans Am and childhood playground equipment in ways that render them threatening, frustrating, and most importantly useless. His installation in PLAY, "One on One" (2011) is an ominous and imposing look at the iconic original joystick video game controllers priapically filling the gallery and asserting their superiority. While formally comparable to the familiar steel monoliths of Edmonton’s seemingly never ending modernist movement, there is an almost embarrassing sensuality to this metal. Cold steel offers an emotional barrage when one sees the absolute impotence of these phallic monuments linked to each other through a single short length of cord. This is an intimate game for two players, more hand to hand combat than digital wizardry, mutual masturbation rather than masterful domination.

                                          Taking the FUN out of FUNCTION

                                                   Craig Le Blanc, 2001

The discarded and forgotten friends of early childhood populate Lorraine Simms’ colourful oil on paper and panel paintings. Simms’ earlier body of work, figurative paintings of adults in furry masks and “plushy” costumes belie an ongoing interest in adult forms of play that brought her the attention of Canadian Art magazine in a feature article written by Isa Tousignant. In her most recent work, shown for the first time at dc3 Art Projects, she creates and then paints bales of stuffed animals mixed with animal bones and skulls, glass eyes and other toys - a rainbow assortment of plushies bound by torn sheets and altered to further animate the inanimate. The eye popping colour and miniature scale of these jewel-like paintings draw us close, simultaneously bound with  and also gazing in on toys that have become our earliest and sometimes closest connection to nature. Google eyes popping from the bondage, these bunnies and bears can almost be heard to call out in Disneyfied voices that are familiar to all. Simms reflects on the fact that for children now, a rabbit is firmly entrenched as a plush toy or a cartoon character with a cute face, pink fur and human characteristics long before it has a chance as a living and breathing being. Lorraine Simms received her graduate education at Concordia University and continues to live in Montreal. While this its the first showing of Simms’ work in Edmonton, she has exhibited in private and public galleries across Canada and the United States and has been reviewed in Canadian Art, Border Crossings and Parachute as well as in newspapers across the country. 

                                                                Bunny

                                                   Lorraine Simms, 2010

Montreal based painter Joe Becker takes his anthropomorphic creatures into a decidedly darker place. Some like Ewoks, others like Gremlins, and many like super-sized Jim Henson creations, Becker’s characters have entered an adolescent fantasy world of bodily functions and violence that are currently being showcased in a survey show at Montreal’s private art incubator PHI Centre. Initial viewing of Becker’ monumentally sized canvases brought to mind fond memories of Maurice Sendak’s amazing Where the Wild Things Are, MAD Magazine, The Dark Crystal and other fantasy movies and Sweetums from Jim Henson’s 1971 The Frog Prince. Confronting the paintings with these thoughts in mind it is clear that the darker forces have prevailed, that teenage angst and vitriol mix aggressively with more naive thought, and bring a very cynical and adult humor to the forefront. The grotesqueries of Becker’s subject matter are softened by his masterly painting, reflecting an intense study of Flemish and Dutch genre painters of the 16th and 17 century as well as those of today. The works in PLAY were created during a painting residency in Leipzig Germany, home of a dynamic school of contemporary German painters.

                                                      Honeysuckle

                                                   Joe Becker ,2010

Amalie Atkins was recently nominated for Canada’s Sobey Art Prize for the second consecutive year and has upcoming shows in major Canadian institutions and international film festivals. Using narratives at once sweet and foreboding, Atkins’ stories are filled with the imagination and handcrafting of childhood while also carrying the anxieties and sadness of adult experience. Atkins works have been featured in major international exhibitions including Mass MOCA’s year long Oh, Canada, the largest survey of Canadian contemporary art. Amalie handcrafts the props and elements in her films as well as writing casting directing and editing the darkly whimsical narrative snippets that she notes may or may not be part of a larger full length story in future work. In “Scenes from a Secret World”, the piece presented in PLAY, Atkins uses childhood’s ultimate freedom vehicle, a lovely red bicycle, to transport her supporting character from place to place thus maintaining the magic of childhood. The Wolf’s murder and ultimate resurrection allows the innocence and wonder to continue, but not without the constant anticipation of an end to it all. Her newest work “The Summoning”, currently in development, is previewed at Art Gallery of Grande Prairie’s current show curated by Amy Fung, They Made a Day Be a Day Here. It gives a glimpse of another childhood pastime, rollerskating, implying both strength and vulnerability in an almost military procession of braided and uniformed uber girls striding across a prairie landscape, perhaps transitioning into adulthood. 

                                                  Three Minute Miracle

                                                   Amalie Atkins, 2011

Tammy Salzl’s transitions are neither confident nor innocent. Completing her MFA at Montreal’s Concordia University, Salzl has upcoming shows in Berlin Germany, Kingston Ontario and at Edmonton’s Latitude 53 in their wonderful new home. PLAY presents several of Tammy’s earlier works examining the difficult nature of childhood and adolescence through the filters of family relations, religion and art history. “Look What You Made Me Do” is a nightmarish tea party held in a familiar room overlooking the perfection and peacefulness of a renaissance landscape. The players in the tea drama look to each other as the adult antagonist lays waste to innocence and joy in a scene that is both horrifying and hilarious - to see the ridiculous nature of adult fury stunted by the miniature ikea furniture set and mute targets. “The Magdalene”, while more quiet and restrained , shows a different kind of adult intervention. Using props from George de la Toure’s The Penitent Magdalene, Salzl presents a young girl surrounded by trappings of childhood, including the carcass of her stuffed bear collaged onto the canvas, religion and the ominous eye of a webcam staring at her as she fondles her rosary. Barely on the verge of adulthood, this is a young woman facing her future with neither courage or certainty but with budding knowledge of what the outside world desires of her.

                                                     The Magdalene

                                                 Tammy Salzl, 2008

“Mighty Men and Mistress Maker”, the colourful interactive sculptural installation by Lethbridge based Cindy Baker, deals with internal desires and awakenings through a childhood drawing toy for boys. Codified toys are a focus for both parents and children when play doesn’t fall within  heteronormative lines. Baker recalls her brother playing with the male approved Mighty Men and Monster Maker toy while she and her sister were relegated to the Barbie equivalent which entailed creating differing outfits for the same idealized body type. In her creative practice Cindy has frequently questioned the gender and body stereotypes of contemporary society, and in this piece she gets to do both. The life size toy allows viewers to bring to life their own idealized “playmate” from any combination of lesbian and feminist archetypes and the original “Mighty Men” forms. In order to do so, the viewer has to actively crawl over and around the single bed using the drawing templates and crayons to animate their two dimensional friend, bringing to mind games of both adults and children. Cindy Baker has performed and exhibited nationally and internationally and is currently completing graduate studies at University of Lethbridge.

                                          Dominatrix drawing template

                                                 Cindy Baker,  2012

Memory and reminiscence, sometimes painful and often fond, informs the small scale sculptural and drawn work of Jude Griebel. Jude has deep roots in the prairies and has broad experience traveling for artist’s residencies around the world. He is currently in the MFA program at Concordia University and is showing this summer in Scandinavia, where he has done several residencies in past years. Griebel’s work lies in an ominous and sentimental world between dream and memory. His drawings and sculptures are simple in material and form, speaking to the importance of the artist’s hand in creation, and connecting directly to childhood craft and playtime. His “Melted Snowman”, topped by a bird able to freely escape, seems sadly resigned to its future, as are his melancholy puppet and bear drawings. Well loved but cast aside these are toys whose best days are behind. The haunting and empty “Grandmother”, home to memory and family, lies open to the elements with windows open and curtains blowing through. While treasured and placed with care on a delicate doily, one can’t help but feel the loneliness of such a place in memory and reality.

                                                          Confidante

                                                    Jude Griebel, 2011

Childhood toys, made-up games, play. These are commonalities to us all. We recall some and forget others. Our early exposures can catalyze future careers and life paths, perhaps forming our adult lives through their effect. Artists incorporate toys and games into their works in part because of these common experiences, fostering a recognition within the work for the viewer. Artists also use these elements because their way of communicating thoughts and ideas, emotion and conflict is a visual one informed by their own playthings and childhood experience. I also believe that there is a societal need for simpler things, slower times and innocence that these artists are tapping into. Sadly, the exuberant nature of pure childhood play is corrupted, twisted and perhaps diminished by our lived experiences. How do we recall childhood and how does it affect us as we grow old? PLAY:Toys+Age+Art.

David Candler

dc3 Art Projects