The Museum of Modern Toddler Art

[Tortoiseonthehalfshell]

Now, Abandoned Breakfast is a particularly important piece. Note the toast finger hanging disconsolately from the eggshell, yolk leaking over the edge of the plate and pooling onto the table below. We can see from the setting that the breakfast was barely touched despite the care used in preparing it, and the futility evoked stands in direct contrast to the cheery cow-patterned eggcup and bright yellow plate. The viewer is confronted by the eternal question: What Is The Bloody Point, I Ask You?

I made Classics! I have Mumsnet Bingo!

Ahem

blissed ignorance
Genius.

It's the Morning Again

An audacious performance piece in which the artist challenges the viewer's preconcieved notions of night and day.

See also It's not nearly Bath Time the same artist.

Part of the Early Days Exhibition, I offer you Newborn

Medium: Photography

A homely environment, warm soft lighting bathes the central figures in a moment of calm. The floor areas in the foreground are strewn with nappy bags, infacol and abandoned sleep suits. To the left of the frame a coffee table features remote controls, water glasses, and several partially eaten chocolate bars.

This haphazard array juxtaposes beautifully with the central figure of mother and child asleep curled into a sofa surrounded by the soft textures of pillows and dressing gown. The newborn's fingers curl round the mother's hand in a gesture of total and complete love. A small smile curls the mother's lip.

Our latest exciting addition to the gallery is

Angel #1 (unexpectedly sleeping)

This is a sentimental piece designed to be shown as a counterpoint to some of the more dynamic exhibits. The artist uses a cushion, his own body and especially his face, to create in the centre of the installation a sense of complete stillness and perfection. Around this in a circle, in stark contrast, are strewn numerous organic and non-organic objects, both whole and broken, which leads the viewer to recall the aftermath of a tornado or other natural disaster. The contradiction between the peace, beauty and stillness in the centre and the chaos and movement at the edges of the piece creates a strong sense of disorientation in the viewer.

Absolute genius. One of my favourite threads ever.

Boy to Man in 60 Seconds
Using no tricks, time-lapse photography or CGI, gaze in amazement as a five year old boy is transformed before your eyes from a fresh-faced infant to a man with a full, brown goatee beard.
Medium is Chocolate Ice-Cream.

how I wonder...

A challenging installation by an interesting new artist set to a musical background. The artist stands on a sofa. If the audience look closer, they can see that the sofa has a large number of unknown stains of different colours and textures and shapes. These could be interpreted as clouds or continents or...? Also on the sofa are a number of mutilated plastic objects - a chewed lego brick, a decapitated doll. The artist begins to softly sing the timeless melody of "twinkle twinkle little star" gradually increasing in volume and becoming increasingly dischordant, perhaps representing the inner turmoil and dischord of the artist. When the song is over, the audience clap their hands. At this, the artist begins the song again.......Average running time of installation is 5 hours. After leaving the piece, audience members will reflect on the power of art to literally transcend the barrier of self as they themselves hear the song repeated in their own brain for several days.

I told you so

Video installation where, on several screens simultaneously, images are shown of dogs and cats being tormented - here a dog is being smothered under a large cushion, there a cat is being detained by its tail, a second dog is being taunted by a shrieking tormentor fom a high vantage point. Suddenly the animals turn on their tormentors.

I told you so [redux]

An exploration of the futility of parental advice.

Mixed mode by various artists.

Exhibits include: a door with crushed fingers; a favourite teddy, now forlorn on the lawn with animal bite marks; pyjamas covered in cat fur; clump of cut-off hair covered in glue; ice cream cone with sprinkling of sand.

Also some interactive exhibits including baby with full tummy that, when jiggled up and down, emits large stream of vomit.

I am absolutely loving this - best thing that has happened to me all day :)

Brown Disquietude

Medium:Playdough

A small but powerful contemporary piece.

The viewer is directly challenged to contemplate the social construct of trying to keep the colours separate please.

This piece, on loan from the New York Museum of Modern Toddler Art, is the central component to the Triptych: Fuck You PlayDough. The remaining pieces, Probably a Pot and And Now You've Walked It In The Carpet So Help Me God are currently under restoration.

Work of genius in itself, this thread!

I'm just marking my place. Don't mind me.

Brown Disquietude is a companion piece to Moonsand Magic, where brightly coloured sand, more expensive than cocaine, is quickly transmuted into brown sand which is gradually swept away until nothing remains but sighs of relief.

I can shout louder than you

A genius interactive re-enactment of the viewer's restrained and often vain attempt to express its dissagreement with the artist's behaviour

The artist's ability to outperform the viewer's disciplinary efforts by sitting himself on the naughty step, shouting "bad mummy" and "no, YOU are a cheeky monkey", is absolutely astounding and has the added bonus of surprising the viewer by its hilarity or, depending on the situation, it tragic closeness to tears....

upsylazy you humiliate me... a true masterpiece

BornSicky and Dude'smummy I love your e-selfportraits, I think you have invented a new art and I adore it :)

Glitter, Glitter Everywhere

A Christoesque piece characterised by sheer exuberance, the artist has collaborated with her younger brother to transform a dining room into a sparkling homage to all things Barbie. The scene calls to mind the immortal lines of Yeats -- 'All changed, changed utterly/ A terrible beauty is born', so thorough is the transmutation from semi-formal space to multi-coloured wonderland. On the table a disco ball (Christmas 1998) slowly turns, creaking slightly at one point of its revolution, casting a surreal, ever-changing array of coloured lighting effects over the work. Most viewers stand slack-jawed, dazzled as it were.

Media: glitter, and plenty of it, and school glue.

I'm so glad this thread got resurrected, I think it is a genius idea tortoise.

New for July 2011, this artist presents Swimming pool nightmare, a demanding physical piece for the viewer/participant. The viewer emerges refreshed from a pool of clear water and is immediately challenged by the requirement to put nappy and clothes on the damp and reluctant artist. Once this is achieved the difficulty increases as the viewer attempts to dress themselves at the same time as meeting variable challenges, which may include:

• removing old plasters/ clumps of hair from the artist's vice like grip;
• preventing the artist from placing self/clothes/towels/viewer's handbag in puddles of water;
• following the artist out of the room dressed in towel/underwear or a combination, as other viewers who have yet to begin their journeys through this piece look on with pity or amusement.

The performance produces feelings of frustration and occasionally embarrassment in the participant who invariably leaves sweating and exhausted, in contrast with their initial feeling of refreshment.

A quick look in before we go to bed

An uncharacteristically quiet piece aimed at this artist's most enthusiastic patrons. Here we see the artist in an unfamiliar attitude of repose and perfect peace. He looks very tiny in an oversized cot and has a small (and rather dirty) toy monkey clutched to his cheek.

The true genius of this artist lies in these rare pieces that seem so out of character. Without these occasional variations the most committed devotee could become weary at the sheer relentlessness of the more characteristic work. After viewing this and similar pieces the viewer is drawn back in and feels their enthusiasm for this important artist's work returning.

City Scape-chalk mural drawn above bunk on freshly painted wall. Using natural chalk pieces found on a beach in Kent it (supposedly) shows Westminster Abbey, Big Ben & something which looks like a Stegasarus but is apparently the London Eye. One is drawn to praise the use of natural resources in the creation of this masterpiece & the versatility of working in the dim green glow emitted by an Ikea night light.

I love this thread and find it very amusing, as an onlooker.

Familarilty breeds less photography

Fascinating photographic installation, consisting of a divided gallery space, one half being filled entirely by thousands upon thousands of practically indentical photographs of the artist as a newborn. The second half has three photographs. Two blurred camera phone shots of the toddler artist's knee and leg, one studio shot of the toddler artist and baby sister in a spookily white abstract background.

Rabbit in Paddling Pool

Taking her cue from the Brit-art movement and Damien Hirst?s striking early animal sculptures in particular, she leans into the rabbit hutch determined to turn Pebbles into a permanent sculpture through firstly preparing her work by squeezing her as hard as she can before running around the garden with Pebbles and dropping into ?formaldehyde? / paddling pool. Fortunately this exhibit was rescued before the work could fully take shape? however, the artist persists in her bid to replicate Hirst in the back garden.

Lost
At first the canvas shows an idyllic rural scene of rolling corn fields and a hill beyond. Only closer inspection reveal the forlorn small child in the left corner and the blue balloon, little more than a dot in the distance.

A comment on the fleeting nature of childhood pleasures.
(or the perils of not listening to your Mother!)