Crash Toys by Dario Tironi and Koji Yoshida

Crash Toys by Dario Tironi and Koji Yoshida

I was really taken by this collection of sculptures by Dario Tironi and Koji Yoshida called Things (Crash Toys). The artwork itself is visually interesting, and I’m fond of discarded toys used as an artistic (and provocative) medium (recently: Michael Wolf and Vitshois Mwilambwe Bondo). But what held my attention even longer was how well a trio of Italian art critics described the art in words.

Crash Toys by Dario Tironi and Koji Yoshida

Writing about art is a skill I strive (each day) to improve upon. Sometimes I worry that the best mentors and role models will be overcome by the occupational hazards of being a writer. So permit me to quote a few skilled writers on Crash Toys, as I enjoyed their words as much as I enjoyed Tironi and Yoshida’s art.

Isabella Del Guerra says “we are what we consume”:

Tironi and Yoshida  encourage us to think about how mankind is contaminated by technology and how we can no longer do without it. The human being takes possession of the objects that he creates, and he feeds on them, using them to replace his own “broken” parts. The bionic man is not science-fiction: he is already part of our very near future and this will surely change the perception of man, his nature and his feelings.

Crash Toys by Dario Tironi and Koji Yoshida

Barbara Melato cuts right to the point:

Objects, pieces of material and rubbish, have occupied so much of man’s life that they have stolen his structure and assumed his likeness.

Crash Toys by Dario Tironi and Koji Yoshida

Within the context of modern art, per Alberto Agazzani:

Modern art is cynicism in culture, the cynicism of culture turned against itself. And it is especially in art, although not exclusively, that, in our world, the most intense forms of that desire to tell the truth that is not afraid to wound its interlocutors are found. The sculptures of Tironi and Yoshida charm, seduce, intrigue and entertain, restoring art’s fundamental prerogative to induce reflection, to question and consequently teach, on a theme which is currently of such urgency. To restate the subliming and transfiguring power of art, but also the ability of human genius to create in the wake of every form of destruction.

I applaud all interlocutors who tune in for daily musings without fear of wounded eyeballs or bruised egos. To art! To us!