We’ve written about Bob Conge’s Night Gamers and custom Eyezon here on ToyCyte. But for Bob’s triumvirate in tomorrow’s Phillips de Pury auction, I turned to toy art consultant and kaiju collector, the enthusiastic and effusive, Mr. Steve Agin.
Bob is a major force in the current burgeoning toy art scene. Working tirelessly from his country studio in upstate NY, he has constantly and consistently produced both the most imaginatively whimsical and profoundly intricate range of figures. Whether manning all aspects of the process with singular virtuosity or, collaborating with other heavyweight standouts in this field (like Mark Nagata), he continues to distinguish himself. At the same time, Bob elevates the whole arcane show, which is largely cult becoming culture, by always engendering an artistic, journeyman-like gravitas in his creations. In Saturday’s Phillips de Pury sale, Bob has 3 knock-out offerings (Lots 106-108 begin here.). One is his “Electro-Jujube,” a tour de force Zagoran that is filled with what look like spectrally colored gummy candies of the cosmic rainbow lit from within by a knock on the feet and strobe-like interior lighting! Certainly a spectacular example of the stalwart Zag’s outer limits. As well, he has a masterful “NightGamer” which has a head studded with glass marbles which light (in changing colors) when activated by hidden motion sensors! This “Toy” is accompanied by a story outfitting its character’s history, which showcases Bob’s inventive literary talents to match the beauty and eccentric brilliance of the Toy it explains. It should be published.
But best and above all is, “Sum and Son of Sum”. Two figures of ‘morrainic’ mountains of refuse literally illustrating the detritus of human civilization (with a nod to Kurt Scwitters). Every detail of specificity is illuminated and legible. A veritable gastric cornucopeia of the effusion of all that has been gloriously produced to heraldic fanfare and ignominiously discarded in the trash heaps of progress and largesse. More than we can ever use or appreciate is here on display in disrespectful, guttonous dismissal. This is a history lesson you won’t get in school. Sobering as it is entertaining. Passionate as it is critical. Moral as it is fanciful. All of it takes place on the back of two fillial creatures capturing and radiating the humaness of the lifeforms that created the very flotsam of garbage that are their bodies. With nods to Hedorah and junkyard kaiju Garuban, Bob has united Japanese modern/neolithism with the intensely compassionate eye-contact (generated in a stare between Sum and Son through red glass orbs) best originally created by Ghirlandaio (a 15th C. Italian Renaissance painter of consummate genius) in his portrait painting of a grandfather and grandson (on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY). This is a bottomless work, a muse piece that informs not only what Bob has to say on these subjects but what Art has to say. And EVEN, that WE still have souls, in this place and time. Make sure you see the work of Bob Conge.
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