‘Play It As It Lays’ Gives Up Control

Part of the Curated by festival in Vienna, ‘Play It as It Lays’ toys with our desire for solace and escape from an increasingly uncertain world. Taking its title from Joan Didion’s 1970 bestseller, which traces 31-year-old actress Maria Wyeth’s descent into madness amid the existentialist ennui of the 1960s, the exhibition features a range of artists whose practices grapple with the ramifications of a hyper-capitalist society.

Near the entrance, James Richards’s installation, Found Objects and Self Diagnosis Kits (2018–ongoing), is laid out on the floor with surgical precision. There is an ornamental sensibility to this extensive collection of medical supplies and disinfectants: treasured objects which help combat the fear of a contaminated life and offer a modest, if illusory, semblance of control. As well as hinting at Wyeth’s institutionalization at the beginning of Didion’s book, the work could also be seen to reference society’s tumultuous return to normality post-pandemic.

Many of the works in ‘Plays It as It Lays’ underscore an inherent desire to explore – or perhaps flee to – greener pastures, while also acknowledging their own limitations. From Lazar Lyutakov’s hypnotic lava lamps (1 Million Random Numbers #T4, #T5, 2024) to Christopher Aque’s graceful kinetic fountains (Double Negative (Swapping Spit), 2021), these works are confined by form and presentation in endless loops of motion, hindering any hope of progress.

Crucially, the show does not equate lack of agency with nihilism, hinting at the reassuring potential of unpredictable natural forces. In Evelina Jonsson’s installation Sånt som faller (That Which Falls , 2021–ongoing), transparent plastic containers rise like mountains in a phantom cityscape, revealing layered microcosms of detritus. Heaps of mouldy ground coffee, wilting roses and old receipts populate the storage boxes. These eclectic ephemera highlight our deceptive sense of control – Jonsson confesses on her website that she is often shocked by the outcome of her work. As unexpected insects spring from her rotten fruit, we are reminded that nothing really ends, the natural cycle simply continues. The futility of planning resonates as oddly comforting, empowering us to relinquish control, as happenstance can produce the most original and beautiful outcomes.

In the exhibition text, curator Kristian Vistrup Madsen writes of creating a show that explores the ‘shift in proportionality between subject and landscape’. This is successfully observed in ‘Play It as It Lays’, with the artists using the latter to provide a psychological insight into the former. Some of the show’s gentler moments emerge in Inge Grünwaldt Svensson’s minimalist watercolours: her ‘Seascape’ series (2007–09) depicts layers of waves so delicate that they resemble the incomprehensible scribbles on treasured postcards from loved ones. These works signal an attempt to hold onto something – a simpler life, perhaps, far from the capitalist grind – a desire so strong it forces you to remove yourself from the distractions of the everyday. The small scale of her works, however, snaps me back into the lofty gallery space. She offers a small window into a nautical reality without allowing me fully to step inside.

In one of her most widely quoted phrases, Wyeth says: ‘I know what nothing means, and keep on playing.’ ‘Play It as It Lays’ similarly acknowledges the anxieties that plague contemporary living, touching on contamination and the sense of urban claustrophobia. Unlike Didion’s novel, however, Madsen’s show stops short of cynicism. In unveiling control as an illusion, the exhibition urges us to engage with the world and embrace its unpredictable disorder. Whether we like it or not, we have all been dealt a hand: the only decision we get to make is how to play it.

'Play It As It Lays' is on view at Charim Gallery, Vienna, until 19 October 

_{Main image: Christopher Aque, Double Negative (Swapping Spit), 2021, kiln-formed glass, acrylic, UV-C germicidal lights, water, pumps, PVC tubes, each fountain 122 × 122 × 42 cm. Courtesy: the artist and Charim Gallery; photograph: Flavio Palasciano}