On March 26, 2014 Co-creators of Magic Pony, Steve Cober and Kristin Weckworth will be giving an in-depth tour and talk of ‘This is Not A Toy’ and elaborating on their own installation within the show entitled ‘Pon Pon Pony Jam’ featuring Devilrobots, James Jarvis, Junko Mizuno, Michael Lau, Nathan Jurevicius, and Pete Fowler. Join us as artist Krystle Tabujara sets up Refined Portraiture and sketches portraits of party attendees to the beats of DJ Petra Glynt and DJ GlitClit (Lido Pimienta).
Plus, it’s two parties for the price of one! Admission to This Is Not A Work Party includes entrance to the after party, hosted by INK Entertainment. Purchase tickets here.
Junko Mizuno
Thanks to NOW Toronto for featuring us as Store of the Week!
Magic Pony has been one of our favourite local destinations for collectibles and unique limited-edition art toys for years. Now, with the high-low design movement in full swing, they’ve found a perfect partner in the Design Exchange’s This Is Not A Toy exhibit.
This Is Not A Toy is the world’s first large-scale exhibit dedicated to designer toys. Co-curated by Pharrell Williams, it’s a playful mix of big-time pieces by artists like KAWS and Takashi Murakami and lesser-known curiosities that will make you want to start a collection of your own. (Read our review of the exhibit in the February 13 issue or at nowtoronto.com.)
Kick off your visit at DX’s Magic Pony Pop-Up Shop. Enter a fantastic space of Totoro plush toys, quirky-cool jewelry and some of the most unique art books around. The best part? Unlike the toys in the exhibit, you can actually take these home.
Magic Pony picks Über-rare Flower Pillows ($250 to $300) by Takashi Murakami, exclusive to the pop-up shop. Also check out Yoshitomo Nara’s The Little Wanderer ($200), a dreamlike character that leisurely strolls about with the help of a pullback spring.
Look For The second monograph by one of Canada’s most unique emerging art collectives, The Merlin Years: The Art Of Team Macho II ($25).
Hours Monday to Wednesday and Friday to Saturday, 10 am to 5 pm, Thursday 10 am to 8 pm, Sunday noon to 5 pm.
Join The Design Exchange on Feb 26, Mar 26, Apr 23, and May 14 for This Is Not A Work Party and unwind with a signature TAG Vodka cocktail and delectable treats! Get an exclusive look at This Is Not A Toy curated by John Wee Tom and DX Associate Curator Sara Nickleson, with Guest Curator Pharrell Williams. Plus, it’s two parties for one price! Continue the celebration at the after party, hosted by INK Entertainment.
FEBRUARY 26.14:
Digital landscape artist Alex McLeod leads a tour of the outstanding contemporary sculptures, figurines and artworks on display created by international artists including Takashi Murakami, KAWS, and FriendsWithYou. Meanwhile, local design shop Magic Pony turns nails into canvases with its Nail Art by Artists drop-in. Admission to This Is Not A Work Party includes entrance to the after party, hosted by INK Entertainment. Continue the celebrations at CUBE Nightclub (314 Queen St W). Purchase tickets here.
MARCH 26.14:
Join us as artist Krystle Tabujara sets up Refined Portraiture and sketches portraits of party attendees. While DJ Petra Glynt and DJ GlitClit (Lido Pimienta) provide the beats, Steve Cober and Kristin Weckworth – the creative forces behind Magic Pony – provide an in-depth tour of the tour of the sculptures and tokens on display. Plus, it’s two parties for the price of one! Admission to This Is Not A Work Party includes entrance to the after party, hosted by INK Entertainment. Purchase tickets here
A new exhibition at the Design Exchange, co-curated by Pharrell Williams, proves that when it comes to art, there’s no need to put away childish things.
By Kate Fane
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Long before his Grammy headgear launched a thousand Twitter parody accounts, producer, singer, and entrepreneur Pharrell Williams had a reputation for being a man of many hats. So it should come as no surprise that the consummate multi-tasker has now added “curator” to his extensive CV. As part of the Design Exchange’s “This Is Not a Toy” exhibition, Williams has donated pieces from his personal collection for the world’s first large-scale show of sculptures, figurines, and artwork connected to the burgeoning designer-toy movement.
Though they first appeared in Hong Kong in the late ’90s, designer toys were quickly co-opted by graffiti artists from around the world, who commodified their trademark characters with special-edition products. Now that the movement’s begun to enter the mainstream, the latest figurines from designers like KAWS and Huck Gee sell out within minutes and can cost more than your rent. Vinyl playthings might seem an odd choice for a museum exhibition, but these objects have highbrow connections that run deep. “For a lot of people, these toys were what brought them into the contemporary art world,” explains Sara Nickleson, associate curator at the Design Exchange. “That’s how Pharrell got involved in the contemporary art world, and now he collaborates with [Japanese artist Takashi] Murakami and Jeff Koons.”
The fruits of Pharrell and Murakami’s partnership will be on display at the museum, along with work from a host of other major artists. Heavy doses of CanCon are provided via customized “Munnys” (Kidrobot’s popular line of DIY figures) from local creatives like Jeremy Laing and Team Macho, as well as an exhibition catalogue essay from Douglas Coupland, who’s never met a pop-culture trend he didn’t like.
“Pharrell’s hooked us up with a lot of these artists,” admits Nickleson. “I mean, some of them are untouchable, but because of his close relationships with them, we now have pieces from their own collections.” While it’s easy to write off many celebrity collaborations as simple publicity grabs, it seems like the Design Exchange really did get lucky with Pharrell.
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!
On February 7 2014, we proudly launch the world’s first ever large-scale exhibition dedicated to urban vinyl as contemporary art. On display until May 18 2014, visitors dive headfirst into the realm of art toys as the Exhibition Hall is transformed into a life-size dream world, filled with pieces ranging from three inches to enormous free-standing sculptures. Co-curated by Williams, initiator John Wee Tom and DX Associate Curator Sara Nickleson, the exhibition will be a tightly-edited presentation of work from some of the best and most prolific toy designers in urban vinyl displayed alongside pieces by contemporary artists who use the toy form as just one of their mediums of artistic expression. Among the artists included are KAWS, Takashi Murakami, Yoshitomo Nara, FriendsWithYou, Huck Gee, Coarse, Frank Kozik, Misaki Kawai, Doma, Bill McMullen and many others.
Why We Need Your Help
The DX is a not-for-profit museum and like many cultural institutions, we rely on support from donors and friends. Urban vinyl as an art movement is still relatively unknown, which is why we’re reaching out to the Kickstarter community - many of whom already know and enjoy urban vinyl as collectors and fans - for support and to help spread the word.
Pharrell is generously donating his time, items from his collection and his personal creative efforts to support the exhibition so that we can bring you the most exciting spread of urban vinyl and contemporary art imaginable. But we need your help…