Bone crushin' hugs n' harmony

 
The biggest lesson to take away from the Affordable Art Fair-- price your work at affordable prices (*like, duh*) and make sure they're really cute. Anything outside of that realm didn't fare too well. So whether it was the discount robots of R. Nick Kuszyk of Brooklyn's McCaig-Welles Gallery, ($30-$300 range) or the previously mutliple mentioned squirrels of Macha Suzuki of L.A.'s Sam Lee Gallery ($600 framed, $500 unframed), the game was anted up to new levels of almost queasingly cute.

Take one Ross Bonfanti, pictured at left, displayed by AWOL Gallery in Toronto. Stripping the stuffed animals of their stuffing, he disembowels them with a vengeance, then fills them with wet concrete, leaving them to harden. Suddenly, they have been HULKED. Yes, that's a word-- HULKED. Highly NOT recommended for the nursery, these "toys" could pack a whollop if used for purposes of evil. I also wouldn't recommend them for the nightmare-challenged. Attack of the Killer Stuffed Animals could certainly be a Troma pictures new release at any moment.

Either way, I love how the pieces of felt are still left behind on the violated bodies, clinging for dear life, as well as the sweet little eyes and noses still intact. It's an interesting take on transformation, as well as a nice look into how what we view as "innocent" or "safe" might really be something quite different underneath its exterior. And at only $500 a pop, these things were flying off their pedestals.

Definitely one to watch.