Written on January 27, 2012 by jeremy
So, in spite of its critique, the KAWS Partners Statue (which is, by the way, made of plastic) has sold out in less than an hour at $180 each. Yeah, I’d turn my back too…
I’d like to go now to some commentary from @chauskoskis as left on my recent story on licensing and laziness in designer toyland:
Wish art toys be more like music or movies… No matter how famous you are, if you put out a low quality product, either a record, a movie. The people won’t go to the teathers or won’t buy the album… And the artist should return a year later with something much better in most of the cases… In toys, fans just want to have everything no matter even if they don’t like it either. I heard some toy fans, “Hmmm I don’t really like it but I will buy it anyways” and they pay 200, 300 for a toy. Weird… We are weird.
Indeed, we are.
And here is another great visual by @crazylikeafox11. Maybe we’re supposed to see this as KAWS conflicted? The artist is reaching out to grab the possibilities the ‘high art’ world is chucking at him, but his creation, the Companion, representing ‘the street’, is mortified? In this conceptual case, the fact that the “statue” sold out would just complete the story arc of the art piece.
But I’m not convinced. Since Warm Regards, KAWS has consistently been releasing products that laugh at his fame and his fans. Like another celebrity whose name begins with the letter K and recently had an “originalfake” wedding of her own, I see the tide turning on him in 2012. People like being part of a joke; not the butt of a joke. Morrissey sang it best 27 years ago: “That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore“.
Written on January 26, 2012 by jeremy
A streetwear brand makes minimal changes to Garfield, and boom, the comatose cat is now an urban vinyl skateboarder. Ron English adds a skeletal grin to a familiar purple dinosaur, and it’s transformed from kid’s toy to collectible. Last year, everyone from SecretBase [here] to Unbox Industries [here] to UNKL [here] courted a Spongebob Squarepants license. And KAWS, bless his hype machine, released his laziest cross-eyed toy yet: Joe KAWS. Designer toys are starting to look a lot like Saturday morning cartoons.
So what’s really separating the kids toys from the “art toys”? 1) Price and 2) Parody. Price is an individual matter, but in my experience, toys for kids cost significantly less than collectible art objects marketed toward adults. To “parody” means to “produce a humorously exaggerated imitation of”. Ron English has demonstrated parody intentionally and consistently through his political pop art career.
For his next toy, he’s set to turn his hijacked cereal box character, Sugar Frosted Fat Tony, into a vinylized riff on Kelloggs’ Tony the Tiger. English has “humorously exaggerated” the mascot’s heft, but does it read as diabetic and lethargic or just kind of cheerful and buoyant? English has spent the last several years tweaking well-known characters into toy art statements. With this one though, has he gone far enough?
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Written on January 26, 2012 by jeremy
Doesn’t this photo kind of evoke American Beauty? The difference is that rather than American Mena Suvari, it’s British Stacey Irvine. Also, the rose petals and titular ‘beauty’ of the former have been replaced with Happy Meal toys and heart disease in the latter.
Irvine is in the news because after collapsing at the factory where she works in Birmingham, it came out that the 17-year old has existed on an exclusive diet of McDonald’s chicken McNuggets since age 2.
Miss Irvine, who has never eaten fruit or vegetables, had swollen veins in her tongue and was found to have anaemia. If Miss Irvine were to eat three portions of [6-piece McNuggets and small fries] in a day, she would eat a third more fat and almost double the amount of salt than is recommended. But, despite being warned that she could die if she sticks to her nugget addiction, she still can’t resist the fast food.
You are what you eat. And Miss Irvine is a nugget (Scottish definition).
There are, of course, serious consequences to this type of habit. A less serious consequence of her craving is that “she is struggling to find places to store all the free toys and novelties that come with the meals. They currently fill four bin bags.” Hmmm…somebody should tell Irvine that there’s a thriving market for American advertising toys in Japan. She’s going to need some help with her medical bills…
Sad stuff. Read the whole article in the UK’s Daily Mail where I expect we’ll see this girl’s obituary in due time.
Written on January 26, 2012 by jeremy
Photographer Sergey Maximishin, who served in the Soviet army during the 80s, took these photos in a Russian “prison museum“. The spoons, shanks and sets of dominoes were all culled from the stomachs of men serving time in the 1950s-60s. Once confiscated, the would-be weapons were lovingly labeled and mounted. Don’t judge me, but I bet people would pay top dollar for these in one of Fab.com’s vintage kitsch sales.
I’m going to go ahead and tag this one “edible art“. Click through for more.
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Written on January 26, 2012 by jeremy
Radioactive Cats © Sandy Skoglund
When I remember my dreams, they look a lot like the photography of Sandy Skoglund. Skoglund has been installing and documenting her conceptual ideas for four decades. Although her work mixes nature and artifice, it does so without the use of Photoshop. In a 2008 interview, she explains the symbiosis of the the two realities: “A world without artificial enhancement is unimaginable, and harshly limited to raw nature by itself without human intervention.”
The Sock Situation © Sandy Skoglund
Skoglund uses common forms like socks (above) food, and animals to relate to the viewer. Many of my favorites from within her expansive archives feature cats, foxes and dogs that have been sculpted and painted. She says: “The animal presence to me is the link between ourselves and the natural world. You look at a dog, and the dog looks back at us. During that moment, we know that we’re not the only consciousness in the universe.”
Fox Games © Sandy Skoglund
When asked how our increasingly digital world affects her concepts and procures, Skoglund responded: “Digital media is the means and not the end. The end is still the same: to make each other more comfortable in a world that does not make much sense. And we make each other feel more comfortable by sharing our discomfort.”
Here here to that! Click through for more of Sandy Skoglund’s colorful photos. Then go click around her website until it’s dark outside and you don’t know where the day went.
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Written on January 25, 2012 by jeremy
It turns out stuffed animals aren’t the only non-traditional medium used by artist, Agustina Woodgate. When her work calls for something more organic than synthetic fur, Woodgate turns to human hair. In the 2007 Brush Series (above), she replaced the bristles of four hairbrushes with hair from herself, her mother, her grandmother and her great grandmother. The wooden and silver brushes each belong(ed) to that particular family member, blurring the line between the object and its objectifier.
In 2008, Woodgate constructed this Tower made up of “3000 human hair bricks”. How did she obtain enough hair for this project? Glad you asked.
For four years (2004-2008), Woodgate set up mobile hair cutting stations in various cities.
It creeps me out to even imagine putting my feet into these, but then, I suppose that’s part of the artist’s intent. Yes, these are slippers made of felted human hair. It seems like Woodgate has moved on from her “hair phase,” but should she return to it, I’ve got ample curls to donate for the cause.
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Written on January 25, 2012 by jeremy
Tessa Farmer is a London-based artist whose tiny sculptures concern the macabre undertakings of entomological fairies and their biological flying machines.
She recently showed creepy, awesome new work in a perfectly suited place: a curiosity shop called Little Shop of Horrors. This place is like London’s answer to New York’s Obscura, and I only hope it gets its own TV show, too.
All photos by DesignerDan. See more of Tessa Farmer’s The Coming of Fairies here. Take a tour of London’s Little Shop of Horrors here. Beautiful work. Click through for a few of my favorite photos.
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Written on January 25, 2012 by jeremy
The Hypolux Chandelier is made up of commercial syringes, plexiglass plates and ballchain suspension. It comes from Bughouse, the same folks who brought us cameras made of concrete. This bleeding edge fixture measures approximately 16″D x 24″H and retails for $500 here. I can’t help thinking The Hypolux Chandelier would make a really considerate Valentines gift for that friend who needs a boost kicking her needle-phobia.
BONUS! If you’re the type who can’t handle commercial-grade syringes, now you can make one out of LEGO. Sean Michael Ragan explains: “I can assure you there is absolutely no reason you need a syringe made out of LEGO. But you want one, don’t you? So did I. And that’s why I designed it.” Full details on how to make your own can be found here. Ragan also sometimes sells them on etsy.
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Written on January 25, 2012 by jeremy
There was a time when people thought that a hairdryer in the shape of a gun was a good idea. That time was 1981, and the world was a different place. This 357 Magnum hair dryer is by Jerdon industries. It’s an “authentic” western gun hairdryer, too.
The one shown here was recently sold on etsy, but if you’ve got $275, you can make an offer for this one on eBay now. Can you really put a price on the power to “blow away” bad hair days?
Click through for more of the Magnum Hairdryer. You might also like the Darth Vader Hairdryer.
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Written on January 25, 2012 by jeremy
Juliet's Balcony © Jeffrey Vallance
Jeffrey Vallance traveled around Italy studying the history of Christian spiritual sculpture, and when he returned, he created his own. The Word of God is his sculptural series of reliquary objects that positions pop culture items as revered religious relics. Vallance writes:
I intend no sacrilege toward relics; I am using the convention of reliquaries as a conceptual framing device to produce a kind of autobiography rendered in personal artifacts. My process of relic accumulation is a lifelong project, with some relics generated intentionally and some accidentally, and it will continue long after the end of this specific project.
Who else noticed the Dead Kennedys pin?
Blinky Exhumation Bone © Jeffrey Vallance
Vallance has a very interesting background. Wikipedia informs me that in addition to his objects, installations and political performances, he also inspired tiki art, designed punk album covers, hosted an MTV show about experimental music videos in 1983 and spent time as the “earthly spokesperson for the disembodied spirit of former US president Richard M. Nixon”. The reliquary above is a reference to Blinky the Friendly Hen, his 1978 project of purchasing a frozen Foster Farms chicken from a grocery store and burying it at a Los Angeles pet cemetery.
Paul Mitchell Road Trip Mousse © Jeffrey Vallance
[via Designboom]
