Toy Story

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More About

• Pam Focker
• Meet the Parents
• Rob Tarbell
• Arts, Entertainment, and Media
• Visual Arts

Meet the Struggles sounds like a recession-inspired installment in the Meet the Parents series, in which Gaylord/Greg and Pam Focker get laid off and make ends meet in comical fashion--perhaps Greg will really have to milk a cat. But it's actually an art exhibit. Too bad, because my idea sounds better than Little Fockers, the actual sequel in which the Fockers have twins and can somehow afford a nanny on the salaries of their teaching and nursing jobs. But like the Fockers series, the Struggles are cute and a bit creepy. They look like teddy bears or stuffed animals, but are porcelain figures created through the destruction of children's toys and thus, artist Rob Tarbell claims, "embody the acts of cremation, preservation and transformation." The Struggles are at Decorazon Gallery, 417 N. Bishop Ave., through January 11. Visit decorazongallery.com.
Thursdays-Saturdays. Starts: Nov. 20. Continues through Jan. 11, 2009