The Gallery as Adult Play Centre

A talk at the ICA on the 29th of February: Fun and Games: The Gallery as Adult Play Centre

I've hung upside down on a climbing frame in an art gallery in Amsterdam and I know that many people played on the slides at the Tate Modern in London, so when I heard that the ICA's founding president, Hubert Read, described the ICA at its inception as an "adult play centre", I was inclined to agree that art galleries can be thought of that.

The talk at the ICA included various speakers, including curators from the Tate Modern, and a number of interesting points were discussed, but no conclusions really seemed to be reached. A video of Oh What a Lovely Whore was shown and then Sebastian Boyle spoke about it. Oh What a Lovely Whore was an exhibition, which looked more like a party really, that happened in 1965 and seemed to involve people getting drunk and smashing up pianos to turn them into new forms of instrument. Tino Sehgal's 2007 This Success/This Failure exhibition was also talked about, which simply involved a gallery full of actual children playing.

A few notes:
- "Play is crucial in sublimating aggression" - Read.
- "Man only plays when in the full meaning of the word he is a man, and he is only completely a man when he plays" - Schiller.
- What happens when participation is forced?
- Being subversive by not playing.
- Invigilators at art galleries hinder play.
- You are not allowed to be delirious.
- Playing is not the same as gaming.

Paintings from the Comfort Zone

Alexandre Pollazzon, near to Goodge Street tube, just off Tottenham Court Road, is currently showing Andreas Dobler's Paintings from the Comfort Zone. The paintings are dreamy and have a sci-fi feel to them, although some are a little bit creepy, but for a few minutes before lectures started, I gazed at the 8 paintings of islands, bridges, tiny buildings and strange structures and imagined I was amongst them.

From the press release: "'Paintings from the Comfort Zone' presents surrealist settings that are hallucinatory utopian/dystopian visions and perhaps, cryptic prophecies about urbanism, originating in the painter's lust to occupy new territory. By indulging in these spaces and grounds, Dobler reflects on his own desire for comfort and security, and painting as an ideal way to reconcile reality and dream."