The commercialisation of cuteness follows in the footsteps of trends gone by
Text by Isaac Hodgson
My shelf (alongside others on Instagram) has become overwhelmed in the last few years with cute collectables; Sonny angels, Hirono figurines, and most recently, figurines produced by our favourite artist of all things adorable, Yoshitomo Nara.
I have been a fan of Nara’s for a long time, so I was ecstatic to unwrap my new child and place them amongst their new friends. And there on the shelf it has sat, blending into the background of my room as I slowly become more used to its presence.
In a gallery, you have no choice but to be confronted with a piece of artwork, face to face. Indeed with Nara’s work the large canvases that are home to some of his most famous slightly ethereal children tower over you, watching you with faces of innocent mischief and indifference. At home, I tower over my miniature figure and see no difference between it and its collectable neighbours. The experience is not the same.
The draw towards Yoshitomo Nara products is surely partly in debt to his cute aesthetic which we have all been drawn to over the past few years. Somerset House’s “CUTE” exhibition explored our relationship with this aesthetic; “cuteness has taken over our world” they declare, alongside an advertisement with a rather garish AI-generated unicorn-kitten hybrid. The exhibition explores cute culture starting at the turn of the century and notes a boom of cute obsession in 1990s Japan which the world has not let go of. One of the primary stances it takes is that “cuteness is a dangerous mixture of safe and commercial”, says TimeOut. As far as the commodification of cuteness goes, these figurines are a perfect example.
Nara’s production of higher-end decorative homeware hardly starts and ends with these figures. A wonderfully cute flip-clock designed in collaboration with the MoMA with each minute/hour displaying a different Nara doodle went semi-viral recently. My feed was flooded with pictures of them in owners’ swanky flats, despite its £410 price tag.
In an interview with Cultured Magazine, Nara states that he doesn’t like making commercial merchandise; he does it ‘for fans who can’t buy the actual artwork’ due to the price tag of his work. ‘There are many people who truly understand my work, beyond the small percentage who have the financial means to purchase them’. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want one of his clocks too. But why do we feel this need to own something, a piece of art that is not as impactful as the original we can see in a gallery for free?
Rumi Josephs, a trend analyst and art culture expert, shed some light on this for me. He draws on the digital realm we live in and the growing instability of subscription services. ‘I think it’s a response to this conscious or unconscious fear in everyone that the things that they define themselves by are actually in the hands of someone else. My favourite album on Spotify might just not be there one day’. Despite having access to everything we’ve ever wanted, the fact that we don’t own any of it is disconcerting.
Art is similar to music, fashion, and movies in that we spend time aligning ourselves with it. We can put ourselves at ease against this fear of ownership with physical media; it’s the reason that vinyl collecting is still around, seemingly as popular as ever. Where the art market differs is its financial inaccessibility; buying a Rothko is not as easy as buying Taylor Swift’s new album. Owning this figure, an official Yoshitomo Nara licensed product, does provide me with a certain level of this comfort, but it’s not as though I can look at one of his paintings as I would in a gallery anytime I please.
The collectable figurines of Nara’s are a drop in the ocean of art commodification. Gift shops have become an expected part of the gallery-going experience, one that I think we all rather look forward to. It’s always fun finding a new bit of tat to remember the experience by, be it a keychain, overpriced socks, or tote bag to add to an ever-increasing collection. But there is never any onus on the product to be a piece of art itself. After all, how could you capture the fine strokes of an impressionist painter on something the size of a fridge magnet? Harmon Siegel writes for ArtForum that the subtleties of Berthe Morisot’s expression, the “partial disgust or hostility” you feel in front of her paintings, are turned into “lovely images of motherly affection” when reproduced.
But again, why do we feel a need to own a deficient version of a piece of art we can see for free? Siegel writes that “if things are judged by their usefulness, art must seemingly become entertainment, decoration, or asset”; we are not satisfied with art for art’s sake. She argues that this can damage our relationship with it: “Overexposure and pastiche can impede perception of any sufficiently famous artwork”. Will seeing Nara’s work every day in a second-rate form, on a t-shirt of a stranger or the figure on my shelf, degrade the meaning of his art for me?
The world of consumer collectable art, sometimes described as ‘designer toys’, separates itself from the gift shop. They are produced on a scale for a consumer market but still aim to retain their own artistic integrity. They can afford to charge a premium that people are happy to pay for a real piece of art.
The collectable nature of high-end artistic products, and the excitement around them, is not a far cry from the buzz that drove the ‘hypebeast’ movement. Recognisable for its loud and heavy branding (think Supreme and Off-White), many of the fashion items and accessories most sought-after in the subculture were so coveted because of their limited release numbers. And it worked. The feeling of exclusivity that owning the items had made people clamour for anything from white t-shirts to crowbars. You couldn’t walk through Soho in 2016 without seeing a snaking line of customers, vying to show off their latest piece.
Some notable artists became swept up in the hypebeast subculture. Takashi Murakami’s flower designs are so prominent across fashion, art, homeware, and more that they don’t require a long introduction: a colourful smiling cartoon flower. Famed collaborations with Off-White, Supreme, OVO and a 12-year tie-up with Louis Vuitton made him a household name within the hypebeast community. His artwork has become prominent in the world of music too, being featured on Kanye West’s album covers, and animated music videos including Billie Eilish’s ‘You Should See Me in a Crown’.
Murakami’s art is so easily recognisable, and the cartoonish, harmless nature of his flowers made them extremely brandable. Pop art lends itself to commercialization, and Murakami’s work is a prime example; who doesn’t love rainbows and flowers? But his art should not be taken at face value. Murakami’s Flower series reflects on trauma and repressed emotions following Japan’s atomic bombings. His ‘super-flat’ style pertains to traditional Japanese painting styles, his flowers blooming in post-war Japanese culture.
His approach to mass market consumerism lowers the barrier to entry for owning his work, spreading his art’s message like a trojan horse. However, I wonder if this does his work justice. When artwork is so disconnected from the gallery setting, blended into the homes and outfits of the masses, its meaning is muddied and lost. Somehow I feel the owners of this £88,000 Hublot watch are not buying it for the same reasons fans enjoy his shows; the flower has become its own brand. Unfortunately, when I think of Murakami, his fascinating sculptures and the repressed struggle they represent are not called to my mind. Instead, I think of a dying trend, Kanye West, and people trying to ‘flex’.
This isn’t to say that this ‘trojan horse’ approach is groundless. Keith Harring’s work was purposefully mass-distributed in accessible ways to the public. His work is bright, cartoonish, and full of symbols, almost ready-made for the products they are deployed on, even today. Again, behind their pop-art mask lies a deeper meaning for any admirers of his work. He uses anti-nuclear imagery, and symbolism to bring awareness to AIDS.
Tom Calvocoressi writes for Apollo magazine that Harring, with the distribution of his work through avenues like his Pop Shop, was able to “smuggle some of these radical messages as widely as possible into the mainstream”. He adds that “his poppy visual alphabet remained the core” of his work, “an address to a public of all ages and backgrounds”. His work and merchandise “quietly colonises people’s homes and hearts”; even right-wing advocates may bring home art promoting safe sex and queer positivity.
Perhaps the issue I have with Murakami’s work is its association with a certain look and icons, or maybe it just needs some time to blend into the obscurity of history; I remember the hypebeast trend too well.
I fear Yoshitomo Nara, riding the wave of cute art, may be following closer in Murakami’s footsteps. In 2019, Murakami partnered with the MoMa to create a fluffy pillow featuring one of his flower designs, which helped spread his image further – just like Nara’s flip clock and figurines. It’s very easy to look at these products which sell for hundreds at retail value and assume that they are being manufactured strictly for monetary gain, but Nara argues against this.
“The more something is reproduced,
Rumi Josephs
the more value the original has”
He maintains that his line of homeware and high-end collectables are a service for his fans. “The income from these types of products is the equivalent of just a few drawings”, and “the amount of energy it takes for me to undertake this production process is even greater than the energy it takes for me to create a large-scale painting”. The same can be said for Murakami; his paintings can bring in millions at auction.
Whilst money may be a distant thought in Nara’s mind, Rumi points out that the value of art is not in the hands of its creator: “the more something is reproduced, the more postcards, posters on walls, the more discussion around it, the more value the original has”. The value of art, he reminds me, is entirely imaginary. “It’s to do with belief; a Rothko painting is worthless if no one believes that it’s worth anything”. The distribution of products for a consumer market makes the artist’s work more recognised, more sought after, and more valuable.
In Rumi’s eyes, the production of art products doesn’t take away from the gallery experience: “I don’t think that these peripheral things sully or degrade the art (on some level) if you accept that the artist and artistic machine at that level are just a business”. But this only applies to artists at the top, that have already made it. “Artists on a rung below, their reputation as being cool and having high cultural capital/cultural cache is incredibly important; being someone that early adopters and people with sophisticated taste have interest in. Then I think it could be tremendously damaging because their reputation is shifted. You have to play this game of trying to remain cool”; he notes he wishes there was a better word than cool.
Despite fears of not looking ‘cool’, some artists have harnessed our obsession with collectables, incorporating it into their art. Jason Freeny’s most prevalent works are his sculptures depicting pop icons with a cross-section view into their anatomy. His work is at once loveable and uncomfortable, dissecting our relationship with cuteness; think Mario with his organs and skull on show. These figures can be found in gallery spaces for thousands, or in miniature, mass-market-produced blind boxes for around £15. Describing himself as a “maker of groovy things”, he straddles the line between artist and toy maker. His popularity is in part thanks to the toy collecting craze (and videos of unboxings on TikTok), but does this make him any less of a ‘real’ artist?
Regardless, Freeny frequently hosts exhibitions in galleries around the world, and rightfully so. He has managed to retain his ‘cool’ status as an artist whilst distributing his art through a commercial product. There seems to be no slowing down within the trend of collectable miniatures, either; Pop Mart, a retailer specialising in toys like this, is set to open its second permanent store in London on Oxford Street shortly.
For now, artists like Freeny and Nara have nothing to worry about as it seems adorable collectables are here to stay for a while yet. And nor do I. I love the figure up on my shelf; it brings me joy and represents the art I hold dear to me. But trends are volatile, and things become outdated at the drop of a hat. I just hope that when (if) cuteness and these figures fall out of fashion, they don’t take one of my favourite artists with it.