Childsplay July 9, 2009

The exhibit 'Childsplay' advances the museum's pioneering legacy of commissioning established and emerging artists to create work that engages children. The exhibition's title is a reference to the art of Allan Kaprow, one of the most important artists to have made work for the museum in the past. His approach to inciting a kind of installation art and performance piece that came to be known, in the late 1960s, as a 'Happening,' serves as inspiration for all of the art in childsplay. Kaprow blurred the boundaries between art and life, finding inspiration from daily objects and patterns and transforming them into participatory environments. Within these environments, unsuspecting viewers became privileged participants in actions that changed how they perceived the world around them. Like Kaprow's art, all the works in childsplay are springboards for experience, and an invitation to explore new ideas.