Author: Rebecca Bednarz

Agustina Woodgate Artist Video: Transcript

Posted on by Rebecca Bednarz

When um . . . without noticing I um . . . I realized that I was carrying my bear, which is right there, and it just meant a lot the memory. And I became very interested in the relationship of . . .  that we had with materials at some point and all of a sudden I realized the relationship I had with this one. But at the same time, not only as a bear of what it meant as a bear but the . . . also the fact that it was just a bear, just a thing, and it was as a relationship to this one object that meant a lot more but by the end it was just a thing. So . . . getting very interested about that, I became very interested in the relationship we have with objects in general and then . . . investigating myself as well because I still wouldn’t even dare to use him or whatever. It just made a lot of sense to me to work with a material that would represent us . . . I found that in every culture or in . . .  it’s just like an icon, like an archetype. So I guess that’s how I ended up with the bears. And then it just like, everything just started falling into place. The relationship I have with animals in my personal life maybe, sometimes, might have something to do with it.

I’m going to cry.

Return to the artist page.

Erwin Wurm

Posted on by Rebecca Bednarz
“I want to address serious matters but in a light way . . . of course, humor is a strong part of this agenda.”

 

 

 

WHO

Erwin Wurm (born 1954, Austria) explores the boundaries of sculpture and performance art. His absurdist work includes everyday object sculptures, architectural interventions, and photography.

 

WHAT

Much of Wurm’s work utilizes the human body. In One Minute Sculptures, he creates instructional drawings inviting visitors to use everyday objects in unconventional ways in order to pose as an ephemeral sculpture. In 59 Stellungen (59 Positions), Wurm dresses himself in nonsensical ways to create forms that appear like modern sculptures.

 

WHY

Wurm explores the physical and psychological boundaries of the material world. Why does using our body to create a sculpture in public cause some people to laugh and others to cringe? How does clothing shape our bodies but also our image of ourselves?

 

LISTEN

PlayTime curator Trevor Smith shares his own experience creating a One Minute Sculpture. Read the transcript.

 

WATCH

Erwin Wurm teaches us how to spell “play” in his response to the PlayTime manifesto. Read the transcript.

 

 

WORKS

 

Double Piece, 2002
From One Minute Sculptures, 1997–present
Mixed media
Studio Erwin Wurm

 

Metrum, 2015
From One Minute Sculptures, 1997–present
Mixed media
Studio Erwin Wurm

 


Organisation of Love, 2007
From One Minute Sculptures, 1997–present
Mixed media
Tate Modern

 

Sweater, pink, 2018
Cotton-acrylic blend fabric and metal
Studio Erwin Wurm

 

59 Stellungen (59 Positions), 1992
Video (20 minutes)
Studio Erwin Wurm

(Image credits: Courtesy of the artist, photo by Elfie Semotan (detail); courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong, photo by Elsa Okazaki; photo by Bob Packert/PEM; photo by Bob Packert/PEM; photo by Bob Packert/PEM; photo by Bob Packert/PEM; courtesy of Studio Erwin Wurm and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong.)

Agustina Woodgate

Posted on by Rebecca Bednarz
“I found that in every culture, [the teddy bear] is just an icon, an archetype.”

 

 

 

WHO

Agustina Woodgate (born 1981, Argentina) is a Miami-based artist making photography, installation, sculpture, video, and performances that often respond to a specific place or situation. She is interested in the relationships that people have with their surrounding environments and how the accelerating pace of technology affects those relationships.

 

WHAT

Woodgate collects large quantities of second-hand, mass-produced stuffed animal toys. With her assistants, she deconstructs and restitches them into colorful patterned rugs using traditional quiltmaking techniques. She references traditional rug making through the symmetrical patterning of these objects.

 

WHY

The rug series takes inspiration from the artist’s own teddy bear, Pepe, who was her only stuffed animal growing up. Pepe has accompanied the artist since childhood, moving with her from country to country and from studio to studio. For Woodgate, stuffed animals represent memories of their owner—even after they are donated or discarded. When she reorganizes them as artmaking materials, she creates new social narratives. What was once personal and private becomes public, communal, and new.

 

LISTEN

PlayTime curator Trevor Smith describes how Agustina Woodgate’s childhood toy eventually launched the Animal Rug Company (ARC). Read the transcript.

 

 

WATCH

Agustina Woodgate tells us about her teddy bear while creating Royal. Read the transcript.

 

 

WORKS

 

Jardin Secreto, 2017
Stuffed animal toy skins
Alex Fernandez-Casais Collection

 

Rose Petals, 2010
Stuffed animal toy skins
Benjamin Feldman Collection

 

Royal, 2010
Stuffed animal toy skins
Collection of Alan Kluger and Amy Dean

 

Peacock, 2010
Stuffed animal toy skins
Courtesy of the artist and Spinello Projects

 

Galaxy, 2010
Stuffed animal toy skins
Collection of Charles Coleman

 

(Image credits: Courtesy of Spinello Projects, photo by Joshua Aronson (detail); photo by Ken Sawyer/PEM; courtesy of Spinello Projects; Courtesy of Spinello Projects, photo by Joshua Aronson; courtesy of Spinello Projects; courtesy of Spinello Projects.)

Angela Washko

Posted on by Rebecca Bednarz
“World of Warcraft is a perfect petri dish for conversations about feminism with people who are uninhibited by IRL [in real life] accountability.”

 

 

WHO

Artist and writer Angela Washko (born 1986, United States) creates absurdist performances as well as new forums for discussing feminism in frequently hostile spaces. Washko’s online life has been a catalyst for artistic production since 2012.

 

WHAT

Washko investigated the social spaces of World of Warcraft (WoW), the highest-grossing multiplayer online role-playing video game over four years. Drawing from her own experience as a player, she began to think of WoW as less of a game and more as a massive, networked social space. Washko created and documented a series of performances in the game, during which she spoke with other players about issues of identity and gender, particularly focusing on how women are treated in the game space.

 

WHY

While playing WoW, Washko began noticing a proliferation of female avatars in the game space. She was disappointed to learn that most of the female avatars were in fact male players who preferred to look at female avatars on screen. This discovery led her to begin a series of performances in the game.

 

LISTEN

PlayTime curator Trevor Smith on the ways Angela Washko’s work reinvents the rules of the game. Read the transcript.

 

 

WATCH

Angela Washko describes her encounters in World of Warcraft. Read the transcript.

 

 

WORKS

 

Performing in Public: Ephemeral Actions in World of Warcraft, 2012–17
Three-channel video installation
Courtesy of the artist

 

Performing in Public: Four Years of Ephemeral Actions in World of Warcraft (A Tutorial), 2017
1 minute, 44 seconds

 

The Council on Gender Sensitivity and Behavioral Awareness in World of Warcraft, 2012

Nature, 2012
7 minutes

Healer, 2012
4 minutes

Playing A Girl, 2013
21 minutes

Red Shirts and Blue Shirts (The Gay Agenda), 2014
24 minutes

We Actually Met in World of Warcraft, 2015
52 minutes

Safety (Sea Change), 2015
44 minutes, 19 seconds

 

/misplay
From The World of Warcraft Psychogeographical Association, 2015
1 hour, 15 minutes

 

(Image credits: Courtesy of the artist; courtesy of the artist; photo by Allison White/PEM.)

Gwen Smith

Posted on by Rebecca Bednarz
“Every day is a play, every day is a collaboration, every day is making art, in a way.”

 

 

WHO

Gwen Smith (born 1968, United States) is a photographer living and working in New York. She describes herself as “an artist, a mother, a seeker, a finder, and a player.”

 

WHAT

The Yoda Project is a series of photographs taken over the course of sixteen years in collaboration with Gwen Smith’s partner, artist Haim Steinbach, and their son, River. The project began as a humorous family holiday card featuring Steinbach wearing a Yoda mask. Since then, the project has evolved to become a series of portraits of Smith’s family, particularly documenting the growth of their now-teenage son.

 

WHY

Beginning in the 1980s, Steinbach chose to personify himself as Yoda, a main character from the Star Wars movie franchise. He would sometimes wear the mask as a disguise for public appearances. For Smith, Yoda is an irresistible, all-knowing character who embodies playfulness—and it is that spirit she captures in her photographs of her family.

 

LISTEN

PlayTime curator Trevor Smith on why Gwen Smith’s holiday cards are different from the ones you usually receive in the mail. Read the transcript.

 

 

WATCH

Gwen Smith on the strangest holiday card she ever sent her family. Read the transcript.

 

 

WORKS

 

The Yoda Project, 2002–17
Inkjet prints
Courtesy of the artist

Roman Signer

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“One’s childhood experiences and adventures are important for every artist. That’s what you feed on. Everything is there already. One only gives it shape.”

 

WHO

Roman Signer (born 1938, Switzerland) works in a variety of media, including sculpture, video, and performance—although he refers to his work as “action sculptures” or “time sculptures.” Signer previously held jobs as an architect’s draughtsman, a radio engineer apprentice, and a worker in a pressure cooker factory. These experiences led him to experiment with elemental forces, materials, and objects from the world immediately around him.

 

WHAT

Signer often works with everyday objects, as in Kajak (Kayak) and Bürostuhl (Office Chair). He uses these materials in strictly planned and controlled experiments, often involving explosions and collisions, which he documents on film.

 

WHY

Signer attempts to make emotional connections between his materials by fusing them together in different ways. Often he goes to absurd lengths to produce a seemingly impossible image or uses the functional aspects of an object in a completely unexpected way.

 

LISTEN

PlayTime curator Trevor Smith considers how Roman Signer’s work plays with the question, what if? Read the transcript.

 

 

 

WORKS

 

Bürostuhl (Office Chair), 2006
Video (1 minute)
Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth

 

Kajak (Kayak), 2000
Video (5 minutes, 20 seconds)
Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth

 

Rampe (Ramp), 2007
Video (30 seconds)
Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth

 

Punkt (Dot), 2006
Video (1 minute, 40 seconds)
Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth

Robin Rhode

Posted on by Rebecca Bednarz
“From the start it was my intention to address . . . political issues, but in a very subtle way—a very playful, very funny, very humorous approach.”

 

 

 

WHO

Robin Rhode (born 1976, Cape Town, South Africa) was raised in Johannesburg as part of the first generation of South African youth to be widely exposed to Western urban culture. Inspired by hip hop, popular sports, and street art, Rhode blends a variety of high and low art forms in his practice by combining photography, performance, drawing, and sculpture.

 

WHAT

Rhode uses materials such as soap, charcoal, chalk, and paint to create interventions that turn ordinary community spaces into imaginary worlds. He takes the familiar street art genre and reinvents it by photographing himself interacting with the drawing as he creates it, suggesting narrative and motion. For example, in He Got Game, Rhode poses himself in a series of chalk drawings on asphalt that come together—like a flip book or a GIF—to show him dunking a basketball.

 

WHY

Rhode’s work is influenced by his experience growing up during the period after Apartheid, a policy of institutionalized racial segregation and discrimination in South Africa from 1948 until 1991. He often uses humor as a tool for coping with the difficult political issues in his home country. In He Got Game, Rhode takes the familiar—a pick-up neighborhood basketball game—and makes it fantastical, dunking the ball in a move that would be impossible in real life.

 

LISTEN

PlayTime curator Trevor Smith describes how Robin Rhodes’s work finds the space between reality and dreams. Read the transcript.

 

 

WORKS

 

He Got Game, 2000
Digital animation (1 minute, 4 seconds)
Courtesy of the artist and Lehmann Maupin

 

See/Saw, 2002
Digital animation (56 seconds)
Courtesy of the artist and Lehmann Maupin

 

Street Gym, 2000–2004
Digital animation (43 seconds)
Courtesy of the artist and Lehmann Maupin

 

Four Plays, 2012–13
Inkjet prints
Courtesy of the artist and Lehmann Maupin

 

Double Dutch, 2016
Chromogenic prints
David and Gally Mayer Collection

 

(Image credits: All images courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong.)

Rivane Neuenschwander

Posted on by Rebecca Bednarz
“I like a sense of humor, but . . . normally I’m more melancholy than playful . . . the playfulness you see is really a way of escaping my timidity.”

 

WHO

Rivane Neuenschwander (born 1967, Brazil) creates art that relies on viewer participation and shared collective experience. Her practice includes performance, video, sculpture, painting and installation work. The artist’s interest in play comes from a desire to push personal boundaries.

 

WHAT

In Watchword, Neuenschwander has embroidered labels with Internet images of words from protest signs. Participants are invited to choose a label, and pin it to the board or to their clothing. When we play with these labels, we connect to protests and we create poetry.

 

WHY

Neuenschwander’s labels refer not only to current social resistance efforts, but also to how she learned to embroider from her mother. She uses a familiar personal craft as a means to explore the spaces between personal and political, artwork and spectator.

 

LISTEN

PlayTime curator Trevor Smith on Rivane Neuenschwander’s invitation to play with protests. Read the transcript.

 

 

 

WORKS

 

Watchword, 2013
Embroidered fabric labels, felt panel, wooden box, and pins
Courtesy of the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel, and Stephen Friedman Gallery

 

(Image credits: Courtesy of the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel, and Stephen Friedman Gallery.)

Paul McCarthy

Posted on by Rebecca Bednarz
“I was kind of a class clown, making people laugh in school.”

 

WHO

Paul McCarthy (born 1945, United States) started making videos in the late 1960s in Southern California. His performances are often absurd and disturbing twists on beloved American legends, myths and icons.

 

WHAT

In Pinocchio Pipenose Householddilemma, McCarthy dresses in a modified Pinocchio costume with an exaggerated fake nose, which he uses to ingest ketchup, mix condiments, and poke holes in the structure. Another Pinocchio figure enters the scene toward the end of the video and the two characters aggressively interact with each other physically using their costumes and props.

 

WHY

McCarthy is interested in pushing the boundaries of a nostalgic childhood character as well as the limits of his audience. The characters shown are not the fictitious and playful do-gooders we grew up with. Pinocchio Pipenose’s explicit and disturbing play challenges our innocent memories of the fairytale Pinocchio.

 

LISTEN

PlayTime curator Trevor Smith describes how McCarthy’s Pinocchio Pipenose character is emblematic of the phrase: “play rewards misbehavior.” Read the transcript.

 

 

WORKS

 

Pinocchio Pipenose Householddilemma, 1994
Video (44 minutes)
On loan from the Marieluise Hessel Collection, Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College

 

(Image credits: © Paul McCarthy.)

Teppei Kaneuji

Posted on by Rebecca Bednarz
“I was often at home by myself and I sometimes felt alone, so I would often put up my drawings and clay figures, hold stuffed animals, read my favorite manga, and watch television. I think I was sensitive to the power held by those actions.”

 


WHO

Kyoto-based artist Teppei Kaneuji (born 1978, Japan) began experimenting with found objects while studying in London. He continues to use mass-produced consumer goods in his sculptures.

 

WHAT

Kaneuji transforms everyday materials into bizarre, fantastical configurations. In White Discharge (Built-up Objects #40), found materials are piled on top of one another on a barbeque grill. Kaneuji unifies their bright, discordant colors under a flow of dripping white resin. In Teenage Fan Club (#66–72), plastic rainbow-colored hair pieces from action figures are reassembled into monstrous forms. The artist’s inspiration came from watching a crowd of people swaying at a concert.

 

WHY

Through stacking, piling, and manipulating mass-produced objects, Kaneuji explores the culture of mass consumption prevalent in contemporary Japan and the United States.

 

LISTEN

PlayTime curator Trevor Smith describes how Teppei Kaneuji’s artistic process is like playing jazz. Read the transcript.

 

 

WATCH

Teppei Kaneuji on finding inspiration in the unlikeliest of places and the importance of feeling “naughty” when making art. Read the transcript.

 

 

WORKS

Teenage Fan Club (#66–72), 2015
Plastic figures and hot glue
Courtesy of the artist and Jane Lombard Gallery

 

White Discharge (Built-up Objects #40), 2015
Wood, plastic, steel, and resin
Courtesy of the artist and Jane Lombard Gallery

 

(Image credits: Photo by Bob Packert/PEM; Courtesy of STPI – Creative Workshop & Gallery; photo by Bob Packert/PEM; photo by Ken Sawyer/PEM.)

Brian Jungen

Posted on by Rebecca Bednarz
“I like using things people can recognize and what they see every day.”

 

WHO

Brian Jungen (born 1970, Canada) is of Swiss/German and Dunne-za descent. He grew up in northern Canada where he took a keen interest in his family’s resourcefulness and recycling of objects. He studied art in Vancouver and currently lives on a ranch in rural British Columbia.

 

WHAT

On a 1998 trip to New York City, Jungen purchased a pair of Nike Air Jordan basketball sneakers. For Jungen, the red, white, and black colors of the sneakers resembled the traditional colors of indigenous art from the Northwest coast. Recalling his family’s practice of recycling, the artist began to deconstruct the shoes as well as other leather goods and sports gear to transform them into sculpture.

 

WHY

Jungen is interested in transforming consumer goods into anthropomorphic forms. He plays with connections between cultural categories that are usually understood to be distinct: indigenous sculpture, modern art, natural history museums, and retail display.

 

LISTEN

PlayTime curator Trevor Smith considers how Brian Jungen’s work blurs the boundaries of sports, play, and intimacy. Read the transcript.
 

 

WORKS

 

Owl Drugs, 2016
Nike Air Jordans and brass
Courtesy of the artist and Casey Kaplan

 

Horse Mask (Mike), 2016
Nike Air Jordans
Courtesy of the artist and Casey Kaplan

 

Blanket no. 3, 2008
Professional sports jerseys
Courtesy of the artist and Casey Kaplan

 

(Image credits: All photos by Jean Vong.)

Cao Fei

Posted on by Rebecca Bednarz
“The theme of reality versus dream and fantasy is present throughout my works.”

 

 

 

WHO

Cao Fei (born 1978, China) is a video and installation artist currently working in Beijing. Part of a generation born after the Cultural Revolution, the artist reflects on China’s transformation by exploring themes of power, absurdity, and utopia in her work.

 

WHAT

Cao’s art often takes a real-life situation and investigates it through the framework of technology or gaming. In the case of Rumba 01 & 02, she humorously tackles domestic life in the twenty-first century by confining robotic vacuums to endless movement on museum pedestals. In Shadow Life, Cao uses a traditional Chinese art form—“shadow shows”—to create a video that tells a contemporary story of politics in modern China and beyond.

 

WHY

Cao attempts to expose the underbelly of consumerist culture in her native China and its global implications. By exploring paradoxes of modern society in bizarre and beautiful ways, she navigates a rapid cultural shift influenced by foreign powers and the virtual worlds of the Internet.

 

LISTEN

PlayTime curator Trevor Smith talks about how Cao Fei uses play to blur the boundaries between humans and machines. Read the transcript.

 

WORKS

 

Rumba 01 & 02, 2016
Cleaning robots and pedestals
Courtesy of the artist and Vitamin Creative Space

 

Shadow Life , 2011
Video (10 minutes)
Courtesy of the artist and Vitamin Creative Space

 

(Image credits: Courtesy of the artist and Vitamin Creative Space; courtesy of the artist and Vitamin Creative Space, photo by Zhang Chi (detail); photo by Allison White/PEM; courtesy of the artist and Vitamin Creative Space.)

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