Atomic Pop hosts first Vinylmore show
It (or "he," as the Web site calls him) is cute and bizarre at the same time, but what is most extraordinary about it is the fact that it is a canvas for nearly any form of artistic manipulation. "MUNNY is here so you can do amazing things and see how great you really are," chirps MUNNY's Web page, a branch of the American company Kidrobot. According to the site's suggestion, "You can draw and paint on MUNNY, use crayons, pencils, ketchup or anything else you can think of ... snuggle him, pierce him, drape him, cherish him. MUNNY is open to pretty much anything."
While none of the artists resorted to ketchup to express themselves, a huge array of interpretations came out of this one blank toy. Arranged in the back of the tiny one-room shop, before the back room where Ray himself served free drinks at the bar, tables displayed what must have been at least a hundred takes on that MUNNY could offer himself up to for the talented artist. Some were whimsical and colorful; others black and white; some cute, some creepy; MUNNY also became political, purely aesthetic, accessorized, mutilated, furry, anime-style, Americana-cartoon-style, caricature and on and on, perched on their own or in front of a backdrop on the clean white tables with cards bearing the name of the artist and the piece and the asking price (all pieces were on sale, most in the mid-to-high one-hundreds).
At 8:15 in the evening, the gallery space was relatively empty. However, by 8:30, as more spectators joined, the store became jam-packed, making it difficult to maneuver through the artists, students, families with small children and older people that had pushed into the impossibly small gallery space to look at the creatures the local talents had dreamed up. Everyone was engaged in conversation; a contributing artist carried his little daughter around to see the pieces, two artists discussed screen-printing techniques. It was chaos, yes, but a friendly chaos, one full of enthusiasm and appreciation for the project that fostered responses from attendees such as, "I like that, that's like a diorama from Godzilla or something."
While none of the artists resorted to ketchup to express themselves, a huge array of interpretations came out of this one blank toy. Arranged in the back of the tiny one-room shop, before the back room where Ray himself served free drinks at the bar, tables displayed what must have been at least a hundred takes on that MUNNY could offer himself up to for the talented artist. Some were whimsical and colorful; others black and white; some cute, some creepy; MUNNY also became political, purely aesthetic, accessorized, mutilated, furry, anime-style, Americana-cartoon-style, caricature and on and on, perched on their own or in front of a backdrop on the clean white tables with cards bearing the name of the artist and the piece and the asking price (all pieces were on sale, most in the mid-to-high one-hundreds).
At 8:15 in the evening, the gallery space was relatively empty. However, by 8:30, as more spectators joined, the store became jam-packed, making it difficult to maneuver through the artists, students, families with small children and older people that had pushed into the impossibly small gallery space to look at the creatures the local talents had dreamed up. Everyone was engaged in conversation; a contributing artist carried his little daughter around to see the pieces, two artists discussed screen-printing techniques. It was chaos, yes, but a friendly chaos, one full of enthusiasm and appreciation for the project that fostered responses from attendees such as, "I like that, that's like a diorama from Godzilla or something."
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