VISUAL ARTS + MUSEUMS

The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston’s Brown Foundation Gallery becomes a stage for The Puppet Show, a group exhibition that looks at the imagery of puppets in contemporary art. The Puppet Show concentrates on sculpture, video, and photography and brings together several generations of artists from around the world.

Organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania, The Puppet Show is co-curated by Ingrid Schaffner, senior curator at ICA, and Carin Kuoni, director, The Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School, New York.

International in scope, The Puppet Show brings together contemporary artworks in a variety of media that explore the imagery of puppets.

From actual puppets, to works that evoke topics associated with puppetry and others that introduce new variations to this historical and global form of theater, The Puppet Show features works that are, in various ways, movable and/or moving objects that perform as alter-egos for the artist or as human surrogates—often with wicked good humor.

Featured artists include Guy Ben-Ner, Nayland Blake, Louise Bourgeois, Maurizio Cattelan, Anne Chu, Nathalie Djurberg, Terrence Gower, The Handspring Puppet Company, Pierre Huyghe, Christian Jankowski, Mike Kelley, William Kentridge, Cindy Loehr, Annette Messager, Paul McCarthy, Matt Mullican, Bruce Nauman, Dennis Oppenheim, Philippe Parreno and Rirkrit Tiravanija, Laurie Simmons, Doug Skinner and Michael Smith, Kiki Smith, Survival Research Laboratory, Kara Walker, and Charlie White.

Some works in The Puppet Show involve puppets as figures: marionettes, shadow puppets, ventriloquist dummies. In others, artists perform as puppeteers. And still other works bring to mind the richly evocative topics associated with puppetry such as manipulation, miniaturization, power, and control. Ventriloquists’ dummies of noted art-world luminaries like Hans Ulrich-Obrist and Liam Gillick sit ready to participate in a panel discussion in Philippe Parreno and Rirkrit Tiravanija’s Untitled (ventriloquist performance #1 (2005); French architect Le Corbusier’s struggles with his 1963 Harvard-commissioned building are documented in Pierre Huyghe’s puppet opera This is not a time for dreaming (2004); a man and woman alternate roles as aggressors, in an unconventional Punch and Judy show, over a romantic supper that erupts into violence in Bruce Nauman’s 1986 video Violent Incident (Man/Woman Segment); and dozens of identical dancing figures perform in Dennis Oppenheim’s 1974 installation Theme for a Major Hit.

The exhibition opens with a look at backstage—an installation dubbed, “Puppet Storage.” The plywood structure is filled with pictures, props, and other source material collected from artists’ studios as well as a historic collection of puppets from the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut selected by the Ballard’s director Dr. John Bell, an internationally renowned puppeteer and historian of puppet theater. “Puppet Storage” was conceived as an exhibition within an exhibition and provides insight into the artists’ working methods and inspirations.

The Puppet Show takes as a historic point of departure one of the first episodes of avant-garde art history: Alfred Jarry’s 1896 play Ubu Roi that was conceived as a puppet show. Considered by many to be the first dramatic work of the theater of the absurd, Ubu Roi (translated as “King Ubu” or “King Turd”) is an allegory of anarchy that uses farce and scatological humor to comment on art, literature, politics, and the ruling class. Since Jarry’s play, puppets have taken hold of pop consciousness by way of films, theater, computer games, and animation. Together with these collective points of reference, the exhibition shows puppets to be a provocative and relevant subject—one that moves deep into social, political, and psychological terrain.

ICA is grateful for support by the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, The Dietrich Foundation Inc., the Overseers Board for the Institute of Contemporary Art, friends and members of ICA, and the University of Pennsylvania.

Special Events in conjunction with this exhibit:

Artists/Scholars Talks -

Saturday, January 17, 2pm Walk-through with Ingrid Schaffner, senior curator, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and co-curator of the exhibition.

Thursday, February 5, 6:30pm, Talk/performance with Houston Playback Theatre.

Thursday, March 5, 6:30pm, Performance/lecture with Joel Orr of Bobbindoctrin Puppet Theatre.

Loft Concert -

Thursday, February 12, 6:30pm, Musiqa continues its Loft Concer series with a selection of music inspired by the exhibition.

Family Day -

Sunday, March 15, 1pm-4pm Join CAMH for family tours and hands-on art activities, including a puppet workshop with Joel Orr of Bobbindoctrin Puppet Theatre.

Pictured: The Handspring Puppet Company and William Kentridge, Ubu and the Truth Commission, 1997. Video documentation of a play for puppets and actors, 90 minutes. Courtesy of the artists.