Games of Life THE RULES are meant to be read out loud. Dead Husband’s Game of Life (cover) Mixed media collage, acrylic paint on found candy box, 2000, 12″ X 10″ X 1.5″ Dead Husband’s Game of Life (inside) “Dead Husband’s Game of Life” is the first of four so far. Each game looks different but the rules are the same. Making collages that are also games extends the interactivity between viewers and the art. One holds the game, shakes it and hears the rattle of the pieces in the box. Playing the game is optional. Merely reading the rules invites complicity on the part of the viewer. Everyone is a player. Momma’s Game of Life (cover) Mixed media collage, acrylic paint on found candy box, 2003, 12″ X 9″ X 1.5″ Collection: Daniel Reiss, New York City Momma’s Game of Life (inside) Momma’s Game of Life (with cover) Game of Life for the Man I will Never Understand (cover) Mixed media collage, acrylic paint on found candy box, 2005, 12″ X 12″ X 1.25″ Collection: Noa Summerfield, Sebastopol, CA Game of Life for the Man I will Never Understand (inside) Game of Life for the Man I Will Never Understand (top-bottom) Game of Life For a Strong Woman (cover) Mixed media collage, acrylic paint, glicée print on found candy box, 2010, 12″ X 8″ X 2″ Collection: Carol Brenglass Spinner, NYC Game of Life for a Strong Woman (inside with rules) Game of Life for a Strong Woman (inside detail) Game of Life for a Strong Woman (detail) Crying Baby Game of Life (cover) This particular Game of Life existed first as a unique object made from a found candy box with mixed media collage images on the cover and glicée print rules inside (2019) Collection: Philip and Judith Miller, Los Angeles, CA. It also exists as an edition of five hand constructed archival boxes, with glicée images; Collection: Rabbi Laurie Phillips, Brooklyn, NY; Lynn Hamilton, St Louis; David Moss, Jerusalem, Susan Beckerman, NYC. (there’s one left of which I am very fond, but would be willing to sell) Crying Baby / Jerusalem (inside) On the Games of Life: Guest commentary by Dr. Viv Gonzalez, PH.d “What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent?” -F. Nietzsche Judith Margolis’ “Game of Life” is compelling as a text or as a work of tactile and visual bricolage, but the richness of her experiment is clearest when it is explored on its own terms – as a game, and a “Game of Life” in particular. In Deluzeian terms, hers is an “ideal game” rather than an “ordinary” one, a game in which every rule is transformed by the act of play. This game bleeds beyond its box into larger life, invites a non-rational number of players, proposes an entirely subjective rule-set, and emerges from intimate idiosyncrasy rather than rational mass-production. It is a thrilling challenge to all the ways “play” has come to mean something decidedly unplayful, and so much more so because this wild play declares itself to be a vision of life. Read complete commentary