Mick O'Shea
Toy Box

November 19, 2000 - February, 2001
Opening November 19, 12-6pm

(Long Island City, NY, November 18, 2000) -- P.S.1 is pleased to present Toy Box, an outdoor holiday installation by artist Mick O’Shea. The outdoor gallery at P.S.1 will be transformed into a holiday-inspired landscape outlined by white picketed fence pathways that lead viewers through an enticing spectacle of gifts, toys, and lighting decorations. Curated by Senior Curator Klaus Biesenbach, this installation addresses the childish desire for objects and the way this correlates with our relationship to works of art later in our lives.

Along the circuitous fenced path, the viewer will discover that the objects which first appear as mass produced lawn toys — sleds, airplanes, toy wagons, and trains — have been physically altered and specialized. Optical spots and holiday colored stripes decorate the surface of the toys, suggesting that a festive mutation has occurred. In addition, small elements have been added to each toy transforming the objects into visual puns: a flexible sled has a modeled forest situated on its back and the pedal airplane toy has arrayed on its tail-wing an assortment of flags.

Toy Box revisits childhood feelings of wonder and desire for objects that are especially amplified on holiday occasions. The short white picketed fence separates the viewer from the toys, serving as a reminder that these objects of desire are somehow out of reach.

Mick O’Shea was born in Nahant, MA, in 1967 and came to New York in 1995. His work has been featured in P.S.1’s Greater New York (2000), and in exhibitions at Kunst-Werke, Berlin (2000), Zilkha Gallery, Wesleyan University (2000), the World Trade Center, New York (1999), the Visual Arts Museum, New York (1997). Upcoming group exhibitions include Arnolfini, Bristol, England (2001), and Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati (2001).