Play is an exploratory activity that seeks to raise new questions. Or, to put it more simply: play involves doing something to see what will happen.
This is perhaps why the Modernist movement in art remains so vital. Modernism raised new questions about form that are still being answered. Modernists played with form so rigorously because the old forms (like most of the 19th century social standards) had become desperately stale and irrelevant.
What are the questions being raised today in art? I'm not sure. I'm not sure many contemporary artists are even thinking about how to "make it new," as Pound put it.
When I see my son pick up an unknown object and examine it, with that smile of fascination that only babies adopt so readily and so un-selfconsciously, I'm reminded of the excitement of discovery through art, all over again.
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