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Arty 19
Children
Adulthood is
hell
said HP Lovecraft.
And as if in response to this, all around us artists and curators
are examining childhood and using their experiences and observations
as a basis for their work.
Marina Warner has just curated a show called Only Make-Believe
at Compton Verney that traces the confluence of art and play in
modern art and relates it to child psychology and the growing interest
in children’s social history.
At the Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood there is an exhibition
called Think +Wonder, Wonder + Think. The show is hidden
amongst the museum’s exhibits and contains work by 20 artists
in response to the museum’s collection. Chantal Joffe shows
paintings of a sulky looking little girl The Three Faces of Moll,
Katherine Tulloh shows a weird animatronic sculpture made of delicate
bits and pieces and glass eyes, Lali Chetwynd shows a whole group
of brightly coloured animals with fake fur.
Artists everywhere are mutating toys, painting sinister looking
kids and depicting bleak childhood haunts. This device of messing
with innocence induces what Freud called the unheimleich. An uncomfortable
feeling that things are not as they should be. So adulthood may
well be hell but all is not rosy in the enchanted land of childhood
either.
This issue of Arty looks at children and childhood from all sides,
going from the concerns of an artist/parent (Roger Dikes) to how
to scoubidou (Sarah Doyle).
The next issue of Arty will appear in August 2005 and will tackle
England, it will also be the last in our current format and will
be accompanied by a show at the Tea Building. Check out this site
for more details
Cathy Lomax
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