MOMA's toys

Did you know that the Museum of Modern Art, New York (MOMA) is the only museum to have Kidrobot toys (or analogous objects) as part of their permanent collection? Though Kidrobot was featured in the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum’s Design Life Now: National Design Triennial 2006, the objects are not a part of the museum’s permanent collection.

In 2007, nine Dunnys and three Munnys, produced and retailed by Kidrobot, were brought into the MOMA's collection- Dunny designs by: Cycle, DOMA, Frank Kozik, Tilt, David Flores, Deph, Kenzo Minami, Thomas Han, and Huck Gee.

 

MOMA’s curatorial staff justified the acquisition of these objects art part of the Design and Architecture Collection based on several criteria. The production of the objects was tied into the history of mass production as well as serialized production, in the form of the applied decoration. The label copy for each object credits Paul Budnitz and Tristan Eaton with the design of the form and each artist who is responsible for the design of the applied decoration. Christian Larsen, Curatorial Assistant in the Dept. of Architecture and Design at the time of the acquisition explains that MOMA was “looking at it as a collaboration between the industrial and the artistic . . . trying to marry those two things together.” Larsen also noted that the Kidrobot toys were tied into the legacy of toys that were already a part of the MOMA’s collection on the one hand, and also highly representative of a recent phenomenon within design: 

"It was about. . .the contemporary currents within design—that these are highly representative of serialized production, but also mass customization, everything that is happening [now] with rapid manufacturing . . . that allows you to customize something on a whim. These are on the one hand standardized, then extremely customized. It’s another kind of permeation of this trend that has been happening in design—to create unique objects."

MOMA has set a precedent for the museum world in this declaration that these art toys are museum-worthy.  


The following are all Collection Museum of Modern Art, New York:

Mao Dunny, 2005, Frank Kozik

Tilt Dunny, 2005, Tilt

Doma Dunny, 2005, DOMA

   Cycle Dunny, 2005, Cycle

Bad Dunny, 2006, David Flores

Big Mouth Dunny, 2006, Deph

Kenzo Minami Dunny, 2006, Kenzo Minami

A group of Kidrobot toys was a part of the MOMA’s exhibition Just In: Recent Acquisitions from the Collection (December 21, 2007- November 30, 2008), but to my knowledge they have not been on view since . . .