Designer toy
Designer Toys (also Art Toys ) are sculptures designed by artists, which are usually limited and numbered. They combine elements of toys and sculptures with borrowings from pop culture to create an independent work of art in which the respective artist is in the foreground. The very elaborate and mostly handcrafted figures are comparable to original art prints with their small series character. In contrast to action figures (such as GI Joe or Masters of the Universe ) or other three-dimensional implementations of licensed products (such as miniature statues or key rings ) designer toys are not just a representation of these figures. While ordinary children's toys are mostly one-dimensional in their emotional effect - the cuteness of a teddy bear , the characteristic roles of dolls and action figures, etc. - designer toys usually combine opposing elements or can be read as social commentary. For example, in his designer toy series “Goon Squad” , the artist Frank Kozik created busts of well-known political leaders such as Mao Zedong , Kim Jong-il or Ronald Reagan in bright colors and with references to pop culture, where the monumental character of the sculptural portrait art, the playfulness of pop culture and the political actions of statesmen are mixed together and a new context is formed. Today, designer toys are exhibited in galleries around the world and are awarded the Designer Toy Award every year and can be seen as a “new movement in contemporary art and design as well as popular culture”. Often there are surreal details and strong exaggerations that hit the nerve of current (pop) culture. Designer toys are created from different materials, especially vinyl - this group of designer toys is also known as “urban vinyl” -, wood, metal, epoxy resin or plush.
Emergence
In the mid-1990s , designer Michael Lau designed the The Gardener series and exhibited the 101 figures in a Hong Kong gallery. Further exhibitions, record covers and participation in the Toycon 1996 (together with Eric So ) made the interest in designer toys grow rapidly. What is attractive about the scene for many collectors is the spectrum in which artistic creation takes place. The spectrum ranges from “classic” artists such as Tim Biskup or Gary Baseman to street art artists (e.g. the London Police's shop recently appeared as a designer toy). Of course, this can also lead to tensions within the scene between artistic demands and commerce.
Artist
Some of the most important representatives of the art direction besides Michael Lau are Gary Baseman (Dumb Luck), Brian Donnelly (KAWS), Tim Biskup (Yeti Squad), Sun-Min Kim and David Horvath (Ugly Dolls), Frank Kozik (Smorkin 'Labbit), Ashley Wood (ThreeA) and Touma (Knuckle Bear). The best-known representatives of this art movement from Germany are the two designers Mark Landwehr and Sven Waschk, who have been working under the name Coarse in Los Angeles since 2003 .
Series
The designer toy series Dunny by kidrobot provided a kind of basic rabbit shape, which was then designed by well-known artists and produced in different editions. The Dunnies were a huge success - in addition to five regular 3-inch series and eight special series, there are also so-called 8-inch Mod-Dunnies by various artists that were produced in series. Other well-known series based on the same principle are Kubicks , Qees , MAD * L , Stereotypes and Trexi . In the meantime, white basic figures are available for your own design, the first such "blank" figure was the munny.
Business
The economic success was not long in coming. From 2002, specialized online shops such as Kidrobot and Critterbox in the USA or Büro Discount and Urbancity.ch in Switzerland emerged, which themselves became part of the scene. Since the demand for some figurines was far greater than the supply, the value of figurines increased in some cases tremendously, which also led to speculative purchases and a lively second market. But companies also became aware of the phenomenon. Sony engaged Michael Lau several times for work, and meanwhile balancing act occurs again and again between art and consumer products, sometimes directly as a product or in advertising campaigns.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ English : "Vinyl figures, plush dolls and designer toys can be seen as a new movement in contemporary design, art and popular culture." (Matthias Hübner: Dot Dot Dash: Designer Toys, Action Figures and Character Art . Die Gestalten Verlag , Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-89955-161-7 , pp. Blurb . )