A couple weeks ago, I called toy art consultant and vast vinyl database, Steve Agin, to chat about the Phillips de Pury art auctions. We ended up talking for five hours about the auction, art, toys, American-Japanese relations, Godzilla, the Internet and how to solve the problem of terrorism. I’m going to attempt to approach those topics in a forthcoming “Godzilla vs. Steve Agin” series, but in the interest of time, I need to tell you about this coming Saturday’s auction in New York. I’ll be profiling a few of the pieces this week, and I’ll kick it off with an artist whose name clocked a solid chunk of time in that phone conversation: Carlos Enriquez-Gonzalez.
You may know that name from ToyCyte’s coverage of the London auction, in which Carlos created a piece called Vagina Brain Monster. The Vagina Brain Monster returns in a new colorway for the New York auction. Of the V.B.M., Steve said: “For Mr. Gonzalez, a vagina represents passage in time and space and, the journey from one reality to another, possibly a more enlightened one.” I asked Steve to answer a question oft-lobbied at toy art, particularly kaiju: Why is this art? Steve replied by paraphrasing the Potter Stewart pornography quote: “When you look at Vagina Brain Monster, you know you are looking at art.”
He went on to say: “The paint is like something out of Tiffany. When you’re looking at it, you know what you’re looking at, and you also don’t know what you’re looking at. It has a quality that is recognizable but is now in a format that is not naturalistic. Then you begin to think to yourself, why has it taken this form? From that point forward, it has a profound effect.” Besides V.B.M, other pieces by Carlos Enriquez-Gonzalez up for auction (lots 109-112 beginning here) are the mesmerizing Mushroom Carousel, Ear Monster and a 24-inch fiberglass Astroboy.
Carlos lives and works in Venezuela where he draws heavily on his childhood influences from vinyl figural toys made of Japanese vintage (60’s - 80’s) live-action and anime TV and movie monster and superhero robot characters. Definitely one to watch.
Leave a Reply