On Saturday evening, Toy Art Gallery in conjunction with the Paul Frank brand opened the Julius Toy Art Show featuring a room full of artist custom Julius vinyl figures (Play Imaginative). Curated by TAG and Caro of Sweet Streets, the exhibition featured a nice blend of toy customizers, illustrators and painters. A few artists delivered a double dose by customizing a toy and submitting an original painting/drawing – a very nice touch and something we’d love to see more of. As a compliment to the exhibition, TAG is also hosting a Paul Frank brand pop-up shop featuring Julius-related merchandise from select brands.
Overall, the quality of the submitted pieces was pretty high with several standout customs. A few highlight pieces include Ian Ziobrowski’s Julius traveler (or is that Smuggler?), Skull Toys’ insanely intricate black + white piece, KMNDZ’s pair of Julius robots done in his signature style with accompanying painting, DrilOne’s pseudo die-cast Julius with matching painting, Martin Ontiveros’s trippy Julius, and Naoto Hatori’s jaw-dropping dark piece which somehow features all of the surreal detail and nuance of his paintings. The large crowd seemed to enjoy the show with many listing off their top three, four or five customs rather than picking just one favorite. Hit the jump for 60+ photos of the opening and also be sure to check out TAG’s show page for availability and pricing of all the exhibition pieces.
