Mark Dion. Delirious Toys: Museum Nikolaikirche

A labyrinth made out of board games, animals scaling a pyramid, all types of vehicles racing one another: in his eight-part installation Delirious Toys, The Berlin Toy Cabinet of Wonder, American collector and installation artist Mark Dion explores major themes using diverse objects from the Stadtmuseum Berlin’s extensive toy collection. Presented at the Museum Nikolaikirche, Dion selected and arranged several hundred objects from the collection of over 70,000 toys; as a complement to the exhibition, junior curators of Gymnasium Tiergarten realized their own project based on Dion’s subject matter.

Forgoing the typical categories associated with collections such as style and chronology, Dion playfully combines size, material, and time to create fantastic narratives. Beyond this celebration of play, the exhibition also attempts to shed light on the violent and discriminatory aspects of children’s toys, raising questions that are important to museums when dealing with such objects.

In the spirit of the cabinet of curiosities, which developed primarily in Europe after the Renaissance, Dion is concerned with the principle of "macrocosm in microcosm”, in which a whole range of major concepts—from the wonders of nature and the laws of physics to ideologies and discrimination—are made intelligible on a small scale. Designed by adults for children, toys always convey the ideals of the respective society and time period in which they were created. When they play with toys, children are introduced to specific ideas and ideologies, and rehearse certain societal roles.

Discussing his approach to this project, Mark Dion said, “The toy collections of the Stadtmuseum Berlin are vast and include mechanical toys, dolls, board games, model trains, tin soldiers, plush animals, doll houses and so many more things. How to make sense of these vast holdings? Being an artist rather than an historian, I had a more free hand in imagining organizational frameworks. One inspiration was doubtlessly my own six year old son, who plays with toys regardless of rigid categories. Dinosaurs live side by side astronauts, 19th century buggies drive along with superhero cars. This freedom of play informed many of the curatorial decisions.”

Mark Dion has long been concerned with the ways in which knowledge is produced and communicated. His main focus is on the history of western institutions and the systems of exploitation and oppression through which, for example, objects from colonized territories arrived in Europe.

Paul Spies, Director of the Stadtmuseum Berlin, says of the exhibition: “I’m very pleased that we have been able to work with Mark Dion. He has turned his unique gaze onto our toy collection and the resulting art project allows us to see both toys and societal roles in a different light”.

The Stadtmuseum Berlin’s toy collection is one of the largest in Germany. It spans the period from the Middle Ages to the present, with a focus on the 19th and 20th centuries. The collection ranges from dolls, plush toys, and play figures to building blocks, play shops, and parlor games. It includes educational materials as well as technical toys like steam engines, model trains, and remote-controlled toy cars.

Image Credit:
 © Stadtmuseum Berlin
Photo by Michael Setzpfandt