PLAYTIME at 9800 S. Sepulveda

Artists: Anna-Sophie Berger, Francisco Cordero Oceguera, Adam Cruces & Louisa Gagliardi, Oscar Enberg, Olivia Erlanger, Oliver Fairhurst, Cédric Fargues, Item Idem, Nik Jaffe & Luke Frith Powell, Matthew Linde, Sam Lipp, Tobias Madison, Emmanuele Marcuccio, Luis Miguel Bendaña, Joseph Mosconi, Mohamed Namou, Sarah Ortmeyer, Lydia Ourahmane, Emilie Pitoiset, Puppies Puppies, Phillip Reitsam, Martyn Reynolds, Andrew Robert Hodgson, Halvor Rønning, Fabio Santacroce, Anna Solal, sstmrt, Philipp Timischl & Min Yoon, Sinae Yoo, Seyoung Yoon

Exhibition title: PLAYTIME

Curated by: Pierre-Alexandre Mateos and Charles Teyssou

Venue: 9800 S Sepulveda, Los Angeles, US

Date: October 29 – November 18, 2015

Photography: images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Parisian Laundry

Playtime is a luggage exhibition. Each work can be written as a formula and reproduced elsewhere. The exhibition itself has been built out of few rules: every artists has been given a room in which he was invited to create a situation, an instruction, a game or an environment that had to be flexible, light and easily realizable on site. There are many inspirations that come to mind: the playful itinerary built all over Paris in the 60’s by the group G.R.A.V, Marta Minujin’s “livable sculptures” or Dylaby, the iconic labyrinth exhibition curated by Pontus Hultén at the Stedelijk Museum.

Every room has it own rules that the visitor can follow or not. Among all of them Lydia Ourahmane hired an hit man that was anonymously visiting the show during the opening, Cédric Fargues invited the spectator to smell his Artsoup, Anna-Sophie Berger offered a Viennese moisture crème to soften your skin, Puppies Puppies let you pet a yellow Boa constrictor, Item Idem realized a farcesque sound an light installation that worked only when the door was closed, Olivia Erlanger provided you the opportunity to test your friendship with knifes while Adam Cruces and Louisa Gagliardi developed a human size holiday box.

Taking place in the office building realized by Welton Becket in the 70’s as part of the L.A.X airport complex, the title is a direct reference the movie Playtime directed by Jacques Tati’s in 1967. In this comedy the lunar and volatile Mister Hulot is drawn into the new high tech district of Paris build on the edge of Orly Airport. Soon he gets lost in the endless corridor of that proto smart-city and start a derive within this absurd and highly technologized urban dream. Among his numerous adventures, Mr Hulot discovers an international fair of useless inventions and tireless ingenuity.