The Autry Presents

Play!

OPEN NOW until January 7, 2018

My daughter and I had a fun afternoon at the Autry Museum where we saw their newest exhibition called PLAY! It was such a fun way to tell her about all the toys I used to play with and even ones her grandparents played with way back when they were little. She had so many questions about the toys and was way more curious than I expected which was great because we wound up staying for a long time and really got to see everything there was to see. Here are some photos from our visit. Read on to see what PLAY! is really about and if you have a chance to go, it was a great little adventure. The Zoo is right across the street and you could make a day of it. I promise you will not be bored and you might even get a little nostalgic looking at all the toys past and present.

From hula hooping in the backyard to arranging digital tiles in a classic video game, the experience of play creates a common connection across cultures, time, and space. Through historic and contemporary objects, interactive environments, and hands-on fun, the Autry’s new Play! exhibition reveals the many ways children have played, the social values toys reveal, and how the American West has inspired imagination. The exhibition launched on Father's Day brings a “Summer of Play!” for Autry visitors of all ages, including playground games, movies on the Autry Lawn, LEGO® days, and drop-in family activities.

Drawing on more than 200 objects from the Autry’s diverse collections, Play! highlights the universal aspects of play while emphasizing the changing concepts of childhood and the social meanings of toys from the nineteenth through the twenty-first centuries. The exhibition also looks at the role of twentieth-century Western toy companies and designers such as Mattel, Wham-O, and Disney, and how they have influenced the ways we play. Organized in four thematic sections—Go Outside!, Learning to Be a Grown-up, Make Believe, and Game Changer—Play! offers kids and adults immersive opportunities to engage and play. The exhibition will extend into the Autry’s outdoor spaces, including the museum entrance and the Autry Lawn.

“The Play! exhibition draws on the breadth and diversity of our Autry collections to tell universal stories of children in the American West. This exhibition captures the curiosity and whimsy that are alive when children play,” said W. Richard West, Jr., the Autry’s president and CEO. “We are delighted to introduce a space that encourages our visitors to learn with one another, be reminded of their own experiences, and have fun while creating new memories with friends and family.”

Play! is curated by Carolyn Brucken, the Autry’s Curator of Western Women’s History. “Many favorite children’s stories include a portal that invites and entices us into a secret world just beyond the everyday, whether it is the wardrobe to Narnia or the brick wall of Diagon Alley,” said Brucken. “We believe that when people cross the threshold into the exhibition, they will enter a transformational portal into an imaginative and surprising world.”