Seen and Herd
Daniel Menasche
At the age of nine, I stood on the slanted front porch of our farmhouse as a giant Transformer approached from the horizon, cratering the landscape with its iron feet, moving as slowly but as inevitably as an approaching thunderstorm.
I remembered the dream, oddly enough, while at the Pony Project, an art exhibition fête-ing "every girls’ favorite toy." Nearly fifty artists from at least three continents were commissioned to alter, ornament or transpose an eighteen-inch high, vinyl My Little Pony.
The show was the conceptual offspring of Hasbro (the toy company encompassing Playskool, Tonka, Milton Bradley and therefore a great deal of your childhood) and Thunderdog Studios Inc., a "Creative Agency/Superpower," which, as President/Creative Director Tristan Eaton put it to me, "is dedicated to exploring how toys relate to art and how art relates to toys."
When I told him of my dream of the Transformer, and how it and My Little Pony seemed to me almost mythological in scope, I was quickly informed that Hasbro made both toys. "We think that limited edition toys should be treated as fine art," Tristan went on to tell me. "It’s the same as a print or a photograph." In the midst of the herd, I found it hard to disagree.
As one would imagine, childhood motifs and mythologies were prevalent at the show. Welsh artist Xanine had literally transposed dozens of photographs, apparently from her childhood, onto the surface of her pony. Chico Hayasaki, whose illustrations utilize a spontaneous line reminiscent of traditional Japanese brush calligraphy, created a pony with girlish tassels and finely rendered dandelion plumes. Animator Amanda Visel painted a cartoon digestive tract on her pony’s flank, a frowning boy in the stomach facing the sad ordeal of digestion while a figurine of young girl dances gleefully beside them on the pedestal. Here, then, is the My Little Pony as an extension of self-image, a mirror in which we see ourselves; it was never a doll to be coddled, but rather a confidant — a peer.
Ingri, a designer of purposefully asymmetrical plush dolls, shared one of the motivations of her work: "When I was a kid," she told me, "I remember having all these cute, perfect stuffed animals that I couldn’t really identify with. I wanted to make stuffed animals that were like me."
Her strangely beautiful pony is flesh colored with bulging black eyes–a post-apocalyptic mutant pony, or sub-pony. Of her own pony, graffiti artist and designer CLAW told me outright, "She’s kind of a self-portrait." She pointed out to me the matching jackets and makeup, patterns and motifs duplicated perfectly from the artist to her steed.
The diversity of themes and techniques in evidence here are rivaled only by the diverse backgrounds of its participants. Mamechiyo, a Japanese kimono designer, tattooed her horse with the intricate patterns of a kimono, the flower motifs thickening about the pony’s feet in as they would on silk, evoking the drift of fallen blossoms.
Vinyl toys have enjoyed a certain vogue as of late. The craze that began in Japan with the Kubrik Bear has become international as lines at Manhattan’s vinyl Mecca, Kid Robot, curl around the block for new releases, and as more and more artists step up to the plate and design their own toys.
The corporate element here might give one pause, were it not for the social responsibilities taken on by the show, which will split the proceeds of all sales with the Association of Hole in the Wall Camps, the world’s largest camping organization for children with serious or life-threatening illnesses.
The mood at the gallery was appropriately earnest: the artists appeared happy to become activists without having to carry placards. They were also happy to one-up each other. "At a show like this," Mr. Eaton told me, "where the starting point is the same for everyone, there’s a spirit of competition." It makes for more spontaneous and playful art, as well–the concept itself being something like a game.
