Mark Dion: Delirious Toys

The American artist Mark Dion has created works of art using objects from the toy collection of the Stadtmuseum Berlin. Hundreds of installations also take a critical look at children's toys themselves.

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  – Mark Dion in der Nikolaikirche (Foto: Michael Setzpfandt)

• – Mark Dion: Great Race (Foto: Michael Setzpfandt)

• Plakatmotiv zur Ausstellung mit Spielzeugen aus der Sammlung des Stadtmuseums Berlin © Stadtmuseum Berlin | Gestaltung: e o t . Berlin – Plakatmotiv zur Ausstellung mit Spielzeugen aus der Sammlung des Stadtmuseums Berlin

For the exhibition, Mark Dion spent months researching the collection of around 70,000 objects, one of the largest in Germany. The result is a labyrinth of board games; animals that climb a pyramid; vehicles of all kinds that engage in an imaginary race on a circuit and other installations. With hundreds of exhibits, they not only explode space and time in the Nikolaikirche Museum, but also take a critical look at children's toys themselves.

Mark Dion has been working intensively since the late 1980s on the question of how knowledge is created and passed on in museums, always with an alert eye for systems of exploitation and oppression. After all, toys, which are mostly designed by adults for children, always convey ideas about people and their world. In dealing with toys, children practise certain role models, and toys are used to teach them specific themes or ideologies.

Runtime: Sat, 07/10/2023 to Sun, 11/02/2024

Takes place here:

• Nikolaikirche (Stadtmuseum Berlin)