brian-jungen – PLAYTIME

Trevor Smith on Brian Jungen: Transcript

Posted on February 1, 2018 by Rebecca Bednarz

When I reached out to Brian Jungen to invite him to participate in PlayTime, his response was to say he’d never really thought of his work having that much to do with play, but I’m happy he decided to trust me on that.

Jungen’s works in this exhibition start with articles of clothing that are directly associated with play—Nike sneakers and professional football uniforms—but at every turn he transforms their function and meaning.

Football uniforms symbolize team affiliation and competition, yet Jungen transforms them into blankets that suggest warmth and intimacy.

Nike sneakers become abstracted faces and masks. The feet have become the head.

You’ve probably already noticed that many of the artists in this exhibition have transformed the function of off-the-shelf objects that are ostensibly made for a singular purpose. You can still recognize the object, but the surprise is how meaningful they become in their new guise.

I think these seemingly absurd actions symbolize how the world can be transformed by the power of our imagination.

Return to the artist page.

Brian Jungen

Posted on January 30, 2018March 4, 2019 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.)

Play Digest: Brian Jungen and Teppei Kaneuji

Posted on March 30, 2018March 4, 2019 by Eugenia Bell

**This week’s pairing of PlayTime artists—Brian Jungen and Teppei Kaneuji—focuses on two different approaches to the transformation of the ordinary—both playful in their own way.**

Sculptor Brian Jungen‘s Dane-zaa heritage informs some of his most potent work. As a young man, Jungen took a trip to New York, where he bought a pair of basketball shoes in a trio of colors that were associated with the Haida tribe of the Pacific Northwest. Since that formative moment, Jungen has taken readily available sports clothing—team jerseys and sneakers, in many cases—and transformed their status and material state to contain a different meaning of “tribal” and make connections between the deification of some consumer goods and the commodification of native culture. Jungen is also interested in how “professional sports fill the need for ceremony within the larger culture of society.”His acts of transformation aren’t limited to Air Jordans. He has made whale skeletons out of basic white plastic outdoor chairs, totem poles out of golf bags, and eagles and possums out of suitcases.

Jungen’s work will be highlighted in a the twentieth edition of the Liverpool Biennial this year, in which co-curator Kitty Scott will give special attention to artists of Indigenous Australian and Canadian First People’s descent.

Kyoto-based Teppei Kaneuji uses resin and glue to make accumulated masses of the most unlikely objects. In an interview, the artist cites his “deliberate misuse and substitution” of materials and tools, such as the hair from dolls used to create Teenage Fanclub, one of the Kaneuji pieces on display in Playtime.

His series of assembled stuffed and sewn cut-outs, Games, Dance and the Constructions extends his playful reimagining and reassembling of items into surreal pillow-scapes contained in boxes.

Kaneuji cites everything and everyone from manga to Richard Deacon to Robert Smithson as influences. He finds—not unlike Jungen does in his work—that there are what could almost be described as cultural patterns that resolve themselves from the intermingling and reimagining of consumer goods, unleashing the unexpected in the overly-familiar.

Check in next week for a new roundup of the latest play news and stories.

(Image credit: Photo by Ken Sawyer/PEM.)

The Works

Posted on September 19, 2017 by Rebecca Bednarz

Cory Arcangel

Image of Cory Arcangel, still from Totally Fucked, 2003, handmade hacked Super Mario Brothers cartridge and Nintendo NES video game system. Courtesy of the artist.

Cory Arcangel, still from Totally Fucked, 2003, hacked Super Mario Brothers cartridge and Nintendo NES video game system. On loan from the artist. Photo by Maria Zanchi. © Cory Arcangel

Cory Arcangel, still from Self Playing Nintendo 64 NBA Courtside 2, 2011, hacked Nintendo 64 video game controller, Nintendo 64 game console, NBA Courtside 2, game cartridge, and video. Courtesy of the artist.

Cory Arcangel, still from Self Playing Nintendo 64 NBA Courtside 2, 2011, hacked Nintendo 64 video game controller, Nintendo 64 game console, NBA Courtside 2 game cartridge, and video. On loan from the artist. Photo by Maria Zanchi. © Cory Arcangel

Learn more about Cory Arcangel.

Mark Bradford

Mark Bradford, Practice

Mark Bradford, Practice, 2003, video (3 minutes). Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth, Zurich, Switzerland.

Learn more about Mark Bradford.

Nick Cave

Nick Cave, clip from Bunny Boy, 2012, video (14 minutes). Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. © Nick Cave

Learn more about Nick Cave.

Martin Creed

Martin Creed, Work No. 329, 2004, balloons. On loan from Rennie Collection, Vancouver. Photo by Bob Packert/PEM.

Martin Creed, Work No. 798, emulsion on wall, 2007. Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo by Bob Packert/PEM.

Learn more about Martin Creed.

Lara Favaretto

Lara Favaretto, Coppie Semplici / Simple Couples, 2009, seven pairs of car wash brushes, iron slabs, motors, electrical boxes, and wires. On loan from Rennie Collection, Vancouver. Photo by Bob Packert/PEM.

Learn more about Lara Favaretto.

Cao Fei

Cao Fei, Rumba 01 & 02, 2016, cleaning robots and pedestals. Photo courtesy of the artist and Vitamin Creative Space. Photo by Bob Packert/PEM.

Cao Fei, still from Shadow Life, 2011, video (10 minutes). On loan from the artist and Vitamin Creative Space. Courtesy of the artist and Vitamin Creative Space.

Learn more about Cao Fei.

Brian Jungen

Brian Jungen, Owl Drugs, 2016, Nike Air Jordans and brass. On loan from the artist and Casey Kaplan, New York. Photo by Jean Vong.

Brian Jungen, Horse Mask (Mike), 2016, Nike Air Jordans. On loan from the artist and Casey Kaplan, New York. Photo by Jean Vong.

Brian Jungen, Blanket no. 3, 2008, professional sports jerseys. On loan from the artist and Casey Kaplan, New York. Photo by Jean Vong.

Learn more about Brian Jungen.

Teppei Kaneuji

Teppei Kaneuji, Teenage Fan Club (#66–#72), 2015, plastic figures and hot glue. On loan from the artist and Jane Lombard Gallery, New York. Photo by Bob Packert/PEM.

Teppei Kaneuji, White Discharge (Built-up Objects #40), 2015, wood, plastic, steel, and resin. On loan from the artist and Jane Lombard Gallery, New York. Photo by Bob Packert/PEM.

Learn more about Brian Jungen.

Paul McCarthy

Paul McCarthy, Pinocchio Pipenose Householddilemma, 1994, video (44 minutes). On loan from the Marieluise Hessel Collection, Hessel Museum of Art, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. © Paul McCarthy

Learn more about Paul McCarthy.

Rivane Neuenschwander

Rivane Neuenschwander, Watchword, 2013, embroidered fabric labels, felt panel, wooden box, and pins. On loan from the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York; Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel, São Paulo, Brazil; and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London.

Learn more about Rivane Neuenschwander.

Pedro Reyes

Pedro Reyes, Disarm Mechanized II, 2012–14, recycled metal from decommissioned weapons. On loan from the artist and Lisson Gallery, London. Photo by Bob Packert/PEM.

Learn more about Pedro Reyes.

Robin Rhode

Robin Rhode, still from He Got Game, 2000, digital animation (1 minute). On loan from the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong.

Robin Rhode, detail of Four Plays, 2012–13, inkjet prints. On loan from the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong.

Robin Rhode, Double Dutch.

Robin Rhode, Double Dutch, 2016, chromogenic prints. On loan from the David and Gally Mayer Collection. Photo courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong.

Robin Rhode, See/Saw.

Robin Rhode, See/Saw, 2002, digital animation (1 minute). On loan from the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong.

Robin Rhode, Street Gym, 2000–2004, digital animation (1 minute). On loan from the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong.

Learn more about Robin Rhode.

Roman Signer

Roman Signer, Kayak.

Roman Signer, Kajak (Kayak), 2000, video (6 minutes). On loan from the artist and Hauser & Wirth, Zurich, Switzerland.

Roman Signer

Roman Signer, Punkt (Dot), 2006, video (2 minutes). On loan from the artist and Hauser & Wirth, Zurich, Switzerland.

Roman Signer

Roman Signer, Bürostuhl (Office Chair), 2006, video (1 minute). On loan from the artist and Hauser & Wirth, Zurich, Switzerland.

Roman Signer, Rampe (Ramp), 2007, video (30 seconds). On loan from the artist and Hauser & Wirth, Zurich, Switzerland.

Learn more about Roman Signer.

Gwen Smith

Gwen Smith, from the series The Yoda Project, 2002–17, sixteen inkjet printed photographs. On loan from the artist.

Learn more about Gwen Smith.

Angela Washko

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, video (1 minute, 44 seconds). Courtesy of the artist.

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

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

Courtesy of the artist.

/misplay, from The World of Warcraft Psychogeographical Association, 2015, video (1 hour, 15 minutes). Courtesy of the artist.

Learn more about Angela Washko.

Agustina Woodgate

Agustina Woodgate, Rose Petals, 2010, stuffed animal toy skins. On loan from the Benjamin Feldman Collection. Courtesy of Spinello Projects, Miami.

Agustina Woodgate, Galaxy, 2010, stuffed animal toy skins. On loan from the Collection of Charles Coleman. Courtesy of Spinello Projects, Miami.

Agustina Woodgate, Royal, 2010, stuffed animal toy skins. On loan from the Collection of Alan Kluger and Amy Dean. Courtesy of Spinello Projects, Miami.

Agustina Woodgate, Peacock, 2010, stuffed animal toy skins. On loan from the artist and Spinello Projects. Courtesy of Spinello Projects, Miami.

Agustina Woodgate, Jardin Secreto, 2017, stuffed animal toy skins. On loan from Alex Fernandez-Casais. Photo by Bob Packert/PEM.

Learn more about Agustina Woodgate.

Erwin Wurm

Erwin Wurm, 59 Stellungen (59 Positions).
Erwin Wurm, 59 Stellungen (59 Positions), 1992, video (20 minutes). On loan from Studio Erwin Wurm. Courtesy of Studio Erwin Wurm.

Erwin Wurm, Double Piece, 2002, from the series One Minute Sculptures, ongoing, sweater, instruction drawing, and pedestal, performed by the public. On loan from Studio Erwin Wurm. Photo by Bob Packert/PEM.

Erwin Wurm, Organisation of Love, 2007, from the series One Minute Sculptures, ongoing, utensils, instruction drawings, and pedestal, performed by the public. On loan from Tate Modern. Photo by Bob Packert/PEM.

Erwin Wurm, Metrum, 2015, from the series One Minute Sculptures, ongoing, shoes, instruction drawing, and pedestal, performed by the public. On loan from Studio Erwin Wurm. Photo by Bob Packert/PEM.

Erwin Wurm, Sweater, pink, 2018, cotton-acrylic blend fabric and metal. On loan from Studio Erwin Wurm. Photo by Bob Packert/PEM.

Learn more about Erwin Wurm.