The Contemporary Museum

International in scope, The Puppet Show brings together works by 27 contemporary artists who explore the imagery of puppets in sculpture, film, video, time-based media, animation, and photography.

Participating artists include: Guy Ben-Ner, Nayland Blake, Louise Bourgeois, Maurizio Cattelan, Anne Chu, Nathalie Djurberg, Dan Graham, Christian Jankowski, Mike Kelley, William Kentridge, Cindy Loehr, Annette Messager, Paul McCarthy, Matt Mullican, Bruce Nauman, Dennis Oppenheim, Philippe Parreno and Rirkrit Tiravanija, Thomas Schütte, Doug Skinner and Michael Smith, Laurie Simmons, Kiki Smith, Survival Research Laboratory, Kara Walker, and Charlie White.

The works range from a 1974 sculpture installation by American artist Dennis Oppenheim to a new animation by the Swedish artist Nathalie Djurberg. Some of the works involve actual puppets (marionettes, shadow puppets, hand puppets) and artists performing as puppeteers. Other images evoke topics associated with puppetry (manipulation, miniaturization, agency, control). Collectively these works show puppets to be a provocative and relevant imagery—one that moves deep into social, political and psychological terrains.

The Puppet Show takes as its historic point of departure an important work of European avant-garde art history: Alfred Jarry’s 1896 play Ubu Roi, which was originally conceived as a puppet show. The despotic King, who strode on stage roaring the French scatological word “merdre,” is the perfect source for all puppet allegories of grotesque government and acts of puppet transgression. Ubu's reign continues with the work of the South African artist William Kentridge in collaboration with the Handspring Puppet Company.

More recently, puppets have taken hold of popular consciousness. They show up on stage, on television, in film, and even online, where assuming a fake identity to garner public opinion is called “sock puppeting.” Seen in correspondence with these pop culture images, the works in The Puppet Show advance the question: why do puppets matter now? Perhaps it is the puppet’s power as an allegorical object that makes it so relevant and liberating. In a time when communication seems increasingly mediated and individual agency diminished, puppets abstract the dramas, mysteries, anxieties, and personas we might all project onto a shared stage.

The Puppet Show is organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania. It is co-curated by Ingrid Schaffner, ICA Senior curator, and Carin Kuoni, Director, The Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School. ICA thanks the following funders: Barbara B. and Theodore R. Aronson; Etant donnes: The French-American Fund for Contemporary Art; Susquehanna Foundation; The Bandier Family Foundation; Goldberg Foundation; Sotheby’s; Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation; The Chodorow Exhibition Initiative Fund; and the Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative, a program of the Philadelphia Center for Arts and Heritage, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, and administered by University of the Arts.

The presentation of The Puppet Show in Honolulu is made possible by in-kind support from by Horizon Lines, LLC, Sony Hawaii, and the Waikiki Parc Hotel.

A fully-illustrated catalog accompanies the exhibition with essays by the curators and contributing authors: John Thomas Bell, Director, Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut; Terence Gower, artist and exhibition designer; Jena Osman, Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing, Temple University; John Pemberton, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, Columbia University; Jane Taylor, Skye Chair of Dramatic Art, Wits School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand; Michael Taylor, Muriel and Philip Berman Curator of Modern Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art; and Allen Weiss, Associate Teacher, Performance Studies and Cinema Studies, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University.