I. B. Tauris & Company Time to Play: Action and Interaction in Contemporary Art (International Library of Modern and Contemporary Art)

'Play art' or interactive art is becoming a central concept in the contemporary art world, disrupting the traditional role of passive observance usually assumed by audiences, allowing them active participation. The work of 'play' artists - from Carsten Holler's 'Test Site' at the Tate Modern to Gabriel Orozco's 'Ping Pond Table' - must be touched, influenced and experienced; the gallery-goer is no longer a spectator but a co-creator. "Time to Play" explores the role of play as a central but neglected concept in aesthetics and a model for ground-breaking modern and postmodern experiments which have tended to blur the boundary between art and life. Moving freely between disciplines, Katarzyna Zimna links the theory and history of 20th and 21st century art with ideas developed within play, game and leisure studies, and the philosophical theories of Kant, Gadamer and Derrida, to critically engage with current discussion on the role of the artist, viewers, curators and their spaces of encounter. Review Katarzyna Zimna s Time to Playis a mostwelcome contribution to art theory andaesthetic theory...The traditional andfamiliar notion of the work of art iseffectively deconstructed and shown to bepossible only on the condition of anoriginal and less familiar notion of the play of art . Zimna s text is one that willbe of great interest to all kinds of artists,spectators and curators. --Dr.Malcolm Barnard, Senior Lecturer in Visual Culture, Loughborough University. About the Author Katarzyna Zimna is an independent artist, researcher and book illustrator based in London and Lodz, Poland. Her work has featured in exhibitions across Europe. She teaches at the Institute of Architecture of Textiles at the Technical University of Lodz.