Table Of ContentCRITICAl AND TRANSGRESSiVE PRACTICES
I
%.
iri^N^.^
ijf^
Digitized by tlie Internet Arcliive
in 2013 ^,, ^
<*^^/
^%
/ •*
i~j
http://archive.org/details/playsthing32whit}.
PLAY'S THE THING
CRITICAL AND T R A N S G R E S S V E PRACTICES IN CONTEMPORARY ART
I
MAY 25-JULy 2001
8,
LUHITNEM
Whitney Museum of American Art
Independent Study Program Exhibition
at the Art Gallery of The Graduate Center
The City University of New York
This brochure accompanies the exhibition
PLAY'S THE THING: CRITICAL AND TRANSGRESSIVE PRACTICES IN CONTEMPORARY ART
organized by the 2000-01 Helena Rubinstein Curatorial Fellows of
the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program:
Susanna Cole, Erin Donnelly, Frank Motz, and Claire Tancons.
The Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program is
supported in part by Joanne Leonhardt Cassullo, Manon and Ian Slome,
the New Dorothea L. Leonhardt Fund of the Communities Foundation of
Texas, Easton Foundation, the National Committee of the Whitney
Museum ofAmerican Art, and the Edward and Sally Van Lier Fund.
Endowment support is provided by The Dorothea L. Leonhardt
Foundation, Inc. and the Helena Rubinstein Foundation.
©2001 Whitney Museum of American Art
945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street
New York, NY 10021
www.whitney.org
INTRODUCTION
BREAD AND CIRCUS
Frank Motz
12
THE OBJECT OF THE GAME IS
Susanna Cole
18
RAIDING THE TOY BOX
Erin Donnelly
24
ANOTHER AN OTHER AN OTHER
IS IS
THE ILLUSION OF MIMICRY AS A PLAY OF IDENTITY
Claire Tancons
31
WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION
32
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Tom Otterness, Moneybag.ManwithCellphone, 1998
INTRODUCTION
Everyone plays. And while play and "The play's the thing, The essays which follow serve not only
games may come naturally to us, they Wherein I'll catch the as an introduction to the exhibition
are formed by culture and serve cul- conscience of the king." and catalogue, but also as an indica-
—
ture. Encircled and defined by rules of William Shakespeare, tion ofthe wide range ofissues in art
fair and foul and by judgments about Hamlet, act 2, and in culture at large raised by the
vs^hat is normal and abnormal, desirable scene 2 practices of play. Frank Motz considers
and undesirable, play and games are not the work in the context of our society of
activities for children, but rather techniques spectacle, which has largely enveloped the
that educate and form us from childhood on. social and professional spheres of contemporary
art. Susanna Cole discusses art that addresses the
The subject-forming nature of play goes largely educational, moral, and subject-forming aspects of
unnoticed or is loosely praised as character build- play, art that undermines sentimental memories of
ing when the sort ofplay in question is clearly in play and of play objects. Erin Donnelly examines
the service ofvalues we think should be universal. the work of artists who cast a critical eye on toys
Our disapproval is reserved for new forms such as and collectibles in our age ofmass production and
video games, which are said to be isolating (and who propose that, especiallywithin the institutions
therefore unsocial and unsocializing), or for prac- of the art world, collections can create new mean-
tices that move in the right direction but are seen ings. Claire Tancons argues that artists use mimicry
—
to be excessive excessively competitive or exces- as a way ofcritically addressing the social function
sively violent, for example. We tend to criticize ofimitation and that, while mimicry radically sub-
these sorts ofplay either as not playful enough and verts simple imitation, it is not an operative mode
therefore antisocial or as too playful and thus ofcritique for postcolonial subjects.
—
infantile criticisms which have been leveled at
the art and the artists in this show. In fact, these In sum, these artists ask what kinds of social sub-
artists have chosen play and games as the site jects playhas traditionallyproduced andthenmake
within culture from which they can most effec- their art in opposition to that production. Their
—
tively question the normative meanings and val- works challenging, rigorous, innovative, hopeful,
—
ues embodied in current practices of play and in and often humorous ask you above all to play
their representation in art. alongwith them.
Kristin Lucas, Host, 1997
'
BREAD AND CIRCUS
Fun has become the No.1 product not only ofHolly- Pinakothek becomes discotheque, Documenta be-
wood and the sex industries, but ofthe art world as comes Oktoberfest, and once again children of all
well. Contemporary art has never been more domi- ages join hands in a Totentanz to celebrate the
nated by discourses offun, pleasure, and spectacle. arrival of a new cybernetic era. Galleries are no
longer galleries: vidtness the airport terminal-like
This exhibition was initially inspired by the art on Damien Hirst art orgy at Gagosian. Museums are
view in the galleries in Manhattan's Chelsea dis- no longer museums: walk up Frank Lloyd Wright's
trict. As an international stronghold of contempo- spiral at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and
—
rary art display, Chelsea the neighborhood and pass a display ofArmani suits, sans price tag. This
—
the metaphor is chockablock with playful events plethora ofcommercial entertainment in the guise
and toylike objects. In such an environment, so and context of art seems, in the words of curator
emblematic of our contemporary experience, we Philippe Vergne, a "totalitarianism that is not liter-
are dominated by a kind ofpleasurable oppression. ally suppressing freedom of speech or thought
Philosopher Guy Debord foresaw this thirty-five but is reducing the faculty ofchoice and self-deter-
years ago in TheSocietyoftheSpectacle: "The spectacle minationviathe means ofleisure andamusement...
corresponds to the historical moment at which the offering nothing but escape."- Benjamin Buchloh
commodity completes its colonization ofsocial life. describes this phenomenon as the "end of art,"
It is not just that the relationship to commodities meaning that there is no longer any distinction
—
is now plain to see commodities are now all between art and fashion (or art and design, or art
that there is to see; the world we see is the world of and programming). Like the bread-and-circuses poli-
the commodity." tics that distracted the citizens ofancient Rome, one
wonders whetherthere are anyartworks capable of
In Chelsea, on the far west side of Manhattan, penetrating beyond the ideology ofthe spectacle.
where the small circle of artists, critics, curators,
collectors, and dealers has expanded exponentially The works in "Play's the Thing" share an engage-
in the past few years, art reverts to kindergarten. ment with and critique of the apparently total-
Frank Motz
Christoph Draeger, TWA800#2, 1999.Acrylicpaintjetonjigsawpuzzle,
7,500 pieces, 4774x 102'/s in. (120 x 260cm). Private collection
izing culture ofthe spectacle. Many ofthese works ofart and society. What had been the province of
employ the forms and representations ofthe spec- the luxurious jewelry producer Faberge in pre-
—
tacle popular cultural images, toys, cartoons, Revolutionary Russia, whose elaborately decorated
—
video games, or parlor games against themselves. Easter eggs, commissioned by the imperial family
Tom Otterness' satirical objet d'art Moneybag Man as gifts and prized and exchanged among European
with Cellphone (1998) was commissioned by the royal families, is now taken up by international
Whitney Museum for the annual American Art corporations under the aegis of Otterness. In the
Award. It was presented, in May 1998, to the multi- same way Faberge madejewelryeggs forthe Russian
national GTE Corporation for its ongoing "sustained Empire, Otterness makes an award for the Whitney
commitment to the diversity, quality, and originali- to give to the CEO ofGTE. The czar has become the
—
ty ofthe arts inAmerica."^ The ornate gift adapted Whitney's director, the czar's Duma has become the
—
from a Faberge Easter egg was funded by the jew- Whitney's Board of Trustees. Instead of a gold-
elry maker Cartier, Inc. Designed and manufactured and-diamond-encrusted Faberge egg displajdng the
by Otterness himselfand handcrafters to his specifi- wealth of the imperial house, this officer of the
cations, it shows a stocky golden businessman corporation carries in his right hand Otterness'
standing on a blue plinth with a cell phone to his sculpture, made ofwhite and yellow gold, lead crys-
ear(the figure's head is represented as a bulgingbag tal, diamond, and lapis lazuli.Art has indeedbecome
of money). The honored businessman is enveloped big jewelry. It is also interesting to note that the
within a handblown lead crystal globe, which is figure ofthe Moneybag Man was inspired by a char-
itself mounted on a base in the form of a silver acter invented by Thomas Nast, the late nineteenth-
—
turtle an ironicAtlas totheworld ofmovingmoney. century political cartoonist famous for his
broadsides exposingcorruption in NewYorkpolitics.
Otterness' award is exemplary ofthe circus and cir-
culation of prestige that exist among museums, If the toylike Moneybag Man award is a real-life
sponsors, award recipients, and artists. An interest- object ofsymbolicvalue and exchange (a pat on the
ing historical analogy can be made ft-om this nexus back for the keepers of culture and spectacle).
