Mark Dion: Delirious Toys: Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn, Germany

With more than 70,000 objects, the toy collection at the Stadtmuseum Berlin is one of the largest of its kind in Germany. The American conceptual artist Mark Dion (b. 1961), himself an obsessive collector, was able to spend months researching these near-inexhaustible holdings to put together a singular trove of different groups of objects. As humans, we learn to understand the world through play, blurring the boundaries between reality and fantasy in the process. Dion harnessed this fluidity: he assembled objects made of a wide range of materials and spanning different eras into individual themed displays, in which the objects can unfold their magic and cast their spell.

Visitors of the new exhibition at the Bundeskunsthalle – children and adults alike – enter a world of fantasy, exuberance and playfulness – they will find a labyrinth of board games, a giant chest full of teddy bears, a procession of animals, a racetrack with vehicles of all kinds, a doll's cave and historic doll's houses. With a theatre of war and a compilation of borderline toxic – as well as some that cross that line – the exhibition does not turn a blind eye to the dark side of the world of toys and play. Visitors navigate a gesamtkunstwerk, a kind of cabinet of curiosities that not only transcends time and space, but also takes a critical look at toys as cultural phenomena.

Photo by Simon Vogel