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Almost Warm & Fuzzy: Childhood and Contemporary Art

Bill Scanga

Takashi Murakami

A rousing welcome to young people, Almost Warm & Fuzzy is an exhibition that will attract both the art-savvy gallery-goer interested in cutting-edge installation art and children and teens eager to find their own experiences reflected in the world around them. Various views of childhood-a mix of innocence and nostalgia, comic-strip heroes and science-fiction, fairy tales and computer games-are explored in 39 thought-provoking works by 31 contemporary artists from the United States and abroad.

The exhibition features several eye-catching kinetic and interactive pieces. The Art Guys have created a gigantic nose, aptly called Big Sneeze, which duplicates the act of sneezing in every detail (including an explosive liquid and an audio component), to the delight of the audiences who see (and hear) it. For Charles Long's Sunday Sculpting School, visitors are encouraged to mold sculptures of their own from chocolate-brown clay. Among the many captivating installation works is Sandy Skoglund's Shimmering Madness, a dreamlike environment of thousands of jellybeans (installed at each venue by the artist's assistants).

Almost Warm & Fuzzy has been designed with families in mind. A 24-page, Spanish-English children's activity book raises intriguing questions in connection with the works and provides a series of projects and tasks for young people. The interpretative object labels have been developed by a group of museum educators especially for younger visitors. A cheerful poster serves as an attractive souvenir of the show as well as an unconventional catalogue, with an essay and the exhibition checklist on the back.

Almost Warm & Fuzzy was organized for the Des Moines Art Center by its director, Susan Lubowsky Talbott, and its research curator, Lea Rosson DeLong. It is being circulated by iCI.

 

Curators Susan Lubowsky Talbott and Lea Rosson DeLong

 

 

 

Exhibition Itineray -
Almost Warm & Fuzzy:
Childhood and Contemporary Art

Tacoma Art Museum
Tacoma, WA
July 7 - September 17, 2000

Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art
Scottsdale, AZ
October 6, 2000 - January 14, 2001

P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center
Long Island City, NY
February 4 - April 8, 2001

Fundacio "la Caixa"
Barcelona, Spain
April 26 - July 8, 2001

Crocker Art Museum
Sacramento, CA
August 30 - November 4, 2001

Art Gallery of Hamilton
Hamilton, Canada
November 24, 2001 - January 20, 2002

Memphis Brooks Museum of Art
Memphis, TN
June 2 - July 28, 2002

Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art
Cleveland, OH
September 13- November 17, 2002

Crocker Art Museum
Sacramento, CA
August 30 - November 4, 2001

Art Gallery of Hamilton, Canada
November 24, 2001 - January 20, 2002

Memphis Brooks Museum of Art
Memphis, TN
June 2 - July 28, 2002

Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art
Cleveland, OH
September 6 - November 10, 2002