Game On!

Exhibiting Artists: Louisa Armbrust, Zoe Buckman, Dario Escobar, Michelle Grabner, Norm Paris, David Rathman, Christin Rose, Jean Shin, and Hank Willis Thomas

Children’s Museum of the Arts is pleased to announce Game On!, an exhibition about our passion for sport and how it has defined our individual and collective identities. Throughout history, the world of games —with its inversions of mastery, dependence on chance and reliance on both verbal and physical play—has intrigued and inspired visual artists. Game On! presents works by contemporary artists who take a reflective, critical or inspired look at sport and how we play the game. Addressing issues of identity, power, heroism, nostalgia, popular culture and gender, Game On! highlights a variety of media that reminds us that within every ruled system, there exists potential for creativity and exploration.

The artists featured in Game On!—Louisa Armbrust, Zoe Buckman, Dario Escobar, Michelle Grabner, Norm Paris, David Rathman, Christin Rose, Jean Shin, and Hank Willis Thomas—investigate the line between freedom and authority embodied in games and sports. From the portrayal of masculinity and femininity in boxing iconography, to wistful history preserved through photographs of abandoned basketball hoops, the works in Game On! explore an array of games and their dynamic histories.

This exhibition is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.