Opening of the exhibition-game "Man Playing" of the project GRUND

The toy in all historical epochs was associated with the game process - the activity in which a person, his mind, physical and moral qualities are formed. The historical conditions of each era leave an imprint on the appearance of toys and the focus of games. Being the most important component of any culture, the toy reflects national traditions and geographical features. Children’s toys are life in miniature, one might say, the foundation on which the child’s attitude is formed, in many ways, the formation of the personality depends on them.

The purpose of the exhibition “a man playing” is to look at how the image of a toy and the rules of games influence the child’s attitude. The authors of the exhibition ask themselves: “Does our future depend on the quality and quantity of toys surrounding future adults? "How will a baby grow up clutching a wooden whistle, and how will he have the last X-box in his hands?"

Many philosophers, culturologists and writers of the 20th century turned to the problems of games, among them, for example, the German writer Hermann Hesse and the Spanish philosopher H. Ortega y Gasset. The name of this exhibition is borrowed from the work of the Dutch historian and culturologist Johan Heisengi (1872 - 1945) "Homo Ludens", which is translated from Latin as "a man playing." In “Homo Ludens”, the scientist defends the thesis about the playful character of culture, disputing the well-known concept that a person made work out of a monkey, he argues: a person came from a game, a game is older than culture and it is the game that creates culture.

The exhibition-game "The Man Playing" is an attempt to rethink the cultural heritage of our country through a comparison of Soviet toys with modern toys. An important aspect: this rethinking will occur during the game and will become part of the personal experience of the participants and visitors of the exhibition, each of which is a “person playing”.

The exhibition will showcase toys from the collection of the Museum of Industrial Culture, the Moscow Museum of Design and numerous private collections. Children’s books, toys for the mind, kindly provided by the Library to them will take their place in the exhibition. Nazyma Hikmet.

We hope that the children who come to the exhibition will show interest in toys (many of them can be played), and at the same time get acquainted with modern art, presented in the exhibition by the works of Andrei Bartenev, Alina Glazun, Nastya Grigoryan and Anna Petrova, Olga Zhitlina, Dmitry Kavarga, Sergey Katran, Boris Kuznetsov, Oleg Makarov, Nikolai Onishchenko, Fedor Pavlov-Andreyevich, Alexander Podosinov, Alexander Terebenin, Dmitry Teselkin, Alexei Tregubov, Ivan Tuzov, Sasha Frolova, :: vtol ::, Organism VARENYE and others.

On the opening day, the presentation of the achievements of students of the Hippopotamus School of Rostan Tavasiev, organized by the Sokol Center for Contemporary Arts and the GRUND project, will be held.

The exhibition will host numerous workshops, lectures and concerts.

Opening Program September 30, 2014:

18-00 opening in the gallery-workshop "Khodynka"

19-00 opening in the gallery-workshop "Sandy"

20-00 ADMI concert (ensemble of children’s musical instruments)

The exhibition will be held from September 30 to November 9 in the gallery-workshop of GRAUND Khodynka (Irina Levchenko St., 2, metro Oktyabrskoye Pole) and GRAUND Peschanaya (23/7 Novopeschanaya St., metro Sokol).