From Toys to Art Treasures: ‘The Teddy Bear Project’

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Children consider them beloved companions. Parents think of them as cuddly toys. Psychiatrists call them transitional objects, comforting possessions that help the young navigate their way from helplessness to independence. But right now at the New Museum, they’re playing an unexpected role: elements of art.

They’re the stuffed-animal stars of “Partners (The Teddy Bear Project),” Ydessa Hendeles’s 2002 installation, the centerpiece of the museum’s enormous show “The Keeper.” An exploration of what it means to collect, “The Keeper” comprises more than 4,000 works. Ms. Hendeles has contributed 3,000: mostly early- and mid-20th-century framed family photographs, culled from many sources, whose only requirement for inclusion was that they contain a teddy bear. This weekend the museum’s First Saturday for Families will focus on her pictures, which are displayed with antique bears and occasional letters and documents explaining the images.

“We chose this exhibition because it definitely appeals to the imagination,” said Emily Mello, the museum’s associate director of education. The drop-in program, “The Teddy Bear Project” — free and geared to ages 4 through 12 — will begin with the installation.

“It ends up being about more than the bears themselves,” Ms. Mello said, about “how people choose to frame themselves with the bears.” Young visitors, she added, can “see how one common object is an entry point for an infinite number of histories.”

Although those histories can be tragic — the teddy bear owners include future Holocaust victims and at least one suicide — others reflect only youthful joy. And while young museumgoers probably won’t recognize Elvis, Ringo or Lucille Ball in their photos, they’ll see that grown-ups posed with teddy bears, too. “In some ways, I think it’s an exhibition that invites families to talk together,” Ms. Mello said.

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