Pharrell Williams guest curates Design Exchange ‘This is not a toy’ show
Art toys are a mash up of street culture, hip hop, graffiti and fashion.
By Jeanne Beker
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The man of the moment is intent on making us smile. Pharrell Williams, hot off the heels of his big Grammy wins and looking ahead to his upcoming Oscars performance, is a pop culture jewel of a guy who’s giving new meaning to the phrase “modern Renaissance”: A singer, songwriter, rapper, drummer, record producer, fashion designer, philanthropist, skateboarder and sci-fi fan, Pharrell is also a toy collector — and he wants to share some of his precious stash with us.
An exhibit he’s guest curated, entitled This is Not A Toy, opens Friday and runs until May 19 at Toronto’s Design Exchange.
And the fare on display is bound to speak volumes to the inner kid in all of us.
According to the Design Exchange, the exhibition explores the “conceptual toy.” Also dubbed “designer toys” or “urban vinyl” — even though materials used often go far beyond mere plastic — these art toys are a mash up of street culture, hip hop, graffiti and fashion. Hong Kong artist Michael Lau, one of the granddaddies of urban vinyl, started the movement in 1997, when he deconstructed and customized a number of G.I. Joe dolls.
By 2001, the designer toy craze was really bubbling up, with companies such as Japan’s MediCom charming international designer toy connoisseurs with Be@rbricks, collectible, cartoon-like plastic bears comprised of nine movable parts. Famous brands, from Coca Cola to Chanel, have collaborated with MediCom to come up with their own whimsical Be@rbricks, and there are more than 30 of them in the DX show.
Another art collaborative, Miami-based FriendsWithYou, started creating soft sculptures including plush and inflatable toys in 2002, and is featuring its rotating happy face and a 9-metre inflatable bouncy castle as part of the exhibit.
Pharrell got turned on to the wonders of designer toys in the late ’90s, when he first travelled to Japan. Nigo, a music producer and creator of the hip hop fashion line “A Bathing Ape” introduced him to the joys of collecting.
“It opened up this whole crazy world for me,” Pharrell told me over the phone from London this week. “I couldn’t believe that life had evolved to the point that grown-ups were playing with toys!”
Pharrell doesn’t claim to have any great education about art. “I just know what I like,” he says.
He also knows the value of having art in your home and just how much it can inspire your children. He claims his 5-year-old son, Rocket Man, is hugely creative, undoubtedly inspired by his dad’s artful eye.
You’ll get a good feeling of the quirky kind of art Pharrell lives with when you see the exhibit’s giant Sponge Bob and Smurf paintings, by American artist KAWS, which were taken right off the superstar’s walls.
John Wee Tom, a local collector and co-curator of “This is Not a Toy,” championed the idea of this playful, 700-piece exhibit because he loves the esthetics of these whimsical objects and what they represent.
“It’s a real cross-pollination of pop culture,” says Wee Tom.
Music lovers will delight in seeing John, Paul, George, and Ringo as the block-style “Kubrick” MediCom plastic figures — standing 68 cm. tall — and a pair of Daft Punk Kubricks as well, all from Pharrell’s private collection.
And fashion fans will appreciate my very own Chanel Be@rbrick, which I’ve loaned to the DX for the exhibit. The limited edition dolls were designed by Karl Lagerfeld in 2006 for window and merchandising displays and then distributed to a number of fashion editors around the world. One just sold online for $10,000.
“You don’t need an art history degree or design background to appreciate any of these small sculptures — everyone ‘gets’ them because of their accessible esthetic qualities,” says Wee Tom.
There’s even an interactive piece — a shaggy pink faux fur wall hanging by Misaki Kawai that begs to be combed.
It’s as though all the snobbery of a design exhibit has been zapped from this show, which takes its name from the disclaimer found on packaging for objects geared to adults, which might be harmful to young children.
“An experience is the most we can ever ask for,” replied Pharrell when asked what he hoped people would glean from the show. “It’s the gravitas and the pertinence of something experiential that stays with us, long after these tangible things are gone.”
“What I love about this show is that’s so inclusive,” says DX President Shauna Levy, who’s worked to revitalize the design museum since she took over almost two years ago.
“And the values of these pieces run from $2 to $2 million,” she says.
The most costly sculpture in the show was created in 2009 by famed Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, Pharrell, and Jacob the Jeweler. Entitled “The Simple Things,” it’s a multicoloured, fibreglass, oysterlike creature that features a precious little diamond-encrusted miniature collection of Pharrell’s favourite things, from a Pepsi can and a bag of Doritos to a bottle of baby lotion.
Wandering through “This is Not a Toy” is tantamount to losing yourself in a very modern, offbeat toy box. And while special kids’ days are scheduled during the duration of the run, I’d say every day is going to feel like kids’ day down at the DX for the duration of this show. And should you, like Pharrell, be inspired to start collecting urban vinyl yourself, Magic Pony, a Queen St. W. shop specializing in art toys, is running a pop up shop downstairs.
This could be the start of something big!
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