Report: Opening night of Baseman’s “For the Love of Toby” show

Last night (Saturday), was the opening of Gary Baseman’s "For the Love of Toby" solo show at Billy Shire Fine Arts Gallery in Culver City, CA.  I was wondering if I would fine a line of anxious fans outside the gallery, and there was a small line of about 8 people at 5:45 or so.  There’s a pretty small set of core fans that come out to many baseman and toy-art related shows — I recognized about 5 of the 8 people in line 🙂  Lines are a little bit of a drag, but a great chance to talk to other people who "get" Baseman and designer toys in general.  Time passes pretty quickly when you’re talking about the upcoming Dunny Series 2 or listening to people’s stories about buying multiple Kozik Mao Dunny’s in search of Mao’s Wife chase dunny.

Around 6:15 or so, people excited said "there he is"!  Soon, a silver Mercedes pulled up and Gary got out, decked out in all black.  He smiled, and ducked into the gallery.  Soon people began to approach his car and started to photograph something inside.  Turns out it was a full-size Toby costume complete with a paper-maiche heade.  Unfortunately, I didn’t take a picture of that — felt a little awkward.  Gary came out a little later to let people know that while he wasn’t signing autographs at the show, he had pre-signed some of the cool show catalogs for people.  One person who had lugged both an NYC and Japan Dumb Luck was unfortunately out of luck.  Gary has a signing on June 11th from 4-7 PM at Billy Shire during which he will sign people’s 16-inch plush Toby’s, show catalogs, and letterpressed posters.

The line grew to about 25 or so by the time the doors opened at 7 PM.  Once inside the gallery, order forms were passed out so people could pre-order the Toby 16-inch plush for $200.  The cool white/red catalog with a cutout of Toby on the cover was $30 and the large  yellow letterpressed posters were going for $50.

After dealing with ordering and such, I had a chance to look around the gallery.  It was nice because at the point the crowd was fairly thin and it was easy to see exactly what you wanted without any need to weave in and out of people.  The 16-inch plush Toby was one of the first displays near the gallery entrance.  First off, yes it’s $200 and yes that’s definitely expensive for a toy — albeit a toy that’s attempting to bridge the distinction between toy and fine art sculpture.  With that out of the way, let me say…. WOW!  It’s very nice.  What surprised me is that the "plush" stands on its own and seems to have poseable arms and legs.  I’m not sure about the posability as I couldn’t obviously pick it up 🙂  Additionally, it’s very detailed, with features such as the eyes (all 3) and the insignia on the fez all being individually sewn on rather than printed.  Definitely has to be seen to be truly appreciated — I took some pics but not sure they really do this piece justice.

Next up, were the two separate displays of 4 Foot (yup, that’s not a
typo) Toby plush figures.  First, there were two Toby’s hugging each
other. The individual Toby was going for $1500 and the two together
where I believe $2800.  The second display featured "Mysic Toby" with
six-arms!  This piece was great and had a price of $4000.  I’m not sure
where one would store such a huge toy — it would dominate all but the
largest of rooms.  Someone joked that at least the 16-inch toy could be
put in one of those cool Ikea glass display cases that seem almost
ubiquitous among toy collectors.

The other scultpure piece on  display was a very large purple/deep red (3 feet?) display adorned with Baseman’s art.  While there were live flowers in the vase at the time — they were apparently just temporary stand-ins.  During the show baseman was wearing his all-black outfit complete with a Toby styled fez and what I thought was a black staff tipped with a Toby head ornament.  After talking to Gary, he mentioned that the staff was really a flower and that the plan was to have had 20 availablle at the show so that they could accompany the vase piece!  That would have been a sight to see.  Unfortunately, I did not take a picture of Baseman.  Nor do I have a pic of the flower.  If you’re wondering about price, it was listed as POR or price on request on the show inventory sheet 🙂

So that covers sculptures. There were well over 40 paintings, drawings, and ephemera pieces (Nostalgic photos to which Gary added his own drawings/painting). I did not take a picture of each piece but here are some of my favorites 🙂  I’m low on battery so there won’t be any captions nor pop-ups for full-size images.  I promise to take care of these details tomorrow night.

       Menage a Toby                                     Toby’s Immaculate Heart

Humpty Toby                          I Hide in Your Dreams

Toby’s Roots                                                  Hotfoot Toby

That’s it for now — I’ll probably add a few more pics tomorrow night.  It’s not nearly the same as "being there", but I hope this little writeup helps to give you a better feel for what was on display.  If any one has a picture of Baseman from last night, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me post it in this entry.  Please send me mail via the email link in the sidebar.  Thanks!