I'M NOT DONE PLAYING WITH THAT

John Arehart
Phil Buehler
Sally Curcio
Peter Drake
Steve Ellis
Barbara Friedman
Linda Griggs
Amy Hill
Tine Kindermann
Mary-Ann Monforton
D. Dominick Lombardi
Andrew Cornell Robinson
Mary Jo Vath
Melanie Vote

Featuring Art Toy Collectables By:
Trenton Doyle Hancock
Takashi Murakami
 

Just in time for the holiday shopping season, Equity Gallery presents I'M NOT DONE PLAYING WITH THAT: Artists Who Refuse to Put Away Their Toys. The show comprises original works of 14 artists whose practices intersects with toys to address whimsical, demented, or somber understandings of disposable consumer culture, art collectibles, questionable childhood safety, painterly concerns, corporal punishment, class struggle, and the enormity of war.  In addition, the exhibition will include limited edition toys by Trenton Doyle Hancock and Takashi Murakami.

Throughout their long association, modern artists have come to this rich and loaded subject from every angle. They create, appropriate, depict, dissect and upcycle. At bare minimum, the list includes Picasso, Lyonel Feininger, Alexander Calder, Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, Jeff Koons, Cindy Sherman, Laurie Simmons, Robert Gober, Malcolm Morley, Mike Kelley and Louise Bourgeois. The extraordinary history of Surrealists and Post-Surrealist using toys is thoroughly explored by David Hopkins in “Dark Toys: Surrealism and the Culture of Childhood” (Yale University Press, 2021). More recently, artists such as KAWS, Futura 2000, and Yayoi Kusama have followed the collectibles model by creating limited edition art toys. 

I’M NOT DONE PLAYING WITH THAT includes collectible art toys by Trenton Doyle Hancock and Takashi Murakami, works that address our disposable consumer culture by D. Dominick Lombardi, Phil Buehler, and Amy Hill, while Mary Jo Vath and Barbara Friedman use toys as a vehicle for painterly concerns examining their demented appearance and wondering “if their stories can be trusted”.  Questionable childhood safety is explored by Mary-Ann Monforton, John Arehart, Sally Curcio, Melanie Vote, Linda Griggs, and Steve Ellis and finally, Tine Kindermann, Andrew Cornell Robinson and Peter Drake use small toys to confront the enormity of class struggle and war. 

Artists have often repurposed discarded, non-art objects. Toys as objects are no exception, though a discarded toy is especially disconcerting since children imbue them with tremendous meaning, but ultimately (and seemingly nonchalantly) cast them aside. 

Freighted as they are, it is no surprise that toys often make their way into the artists' process.