Toys Redux: An Anthology on Play as Critical Action

Gathering works by Cory Arcangel, Alex Bag & Patterson Beckwith, Judith Bernstein, Vittorio Brodmann, Marvin Gaye Chetwynd, Simon Denny, Harun Farocki, Tabor Robak and many others, this publication brings together artists who use pop-culture formats and imagery usually addressed to children or teenagers. This adoption of such motifs should not be seen merely as a reference to (or appropriation of) popular culture: rather, it becomes an implicit (or explicit) critique of a kind of capitalist production of consumer worlds that have also infiltrated the field of art. These playful children’s or fantasy worlds, with their pop aesthetic and inherent promise of innocence, contrast with the reality of these neoliberal advertising and market strategies. The publication includes essays by critic Esther Buss, professor Alexander R. Galloway, and art historian and philosopher Hans Ulrich Reck, among others, as well as interviews with the artists.