"Free Mickey" Group Art Show @ Earth To Kentucky (Opens January 1, 2023)
TOYNEWS SUBMISSION: In anticipation of the Steamboat Willie version of Mickey Mouse entering the public domain on January 1st, Earth To Kentucky is hosting a Mickey themed group art show curated by Canadian artist Skot Deeming (AKA "Yoyodyne Toy Division"). The show will be up for the majority of January.
Check out the official press release (reproduced below), along with artwork previews!
After 94 years, the first iteration of Mickey Mouse, who first starred in the animated film Steamboat Willie, will enter the public domain on January 1, 2024. To celebrate this moment, artist/ curator Skot Deeming (aka @yoyodynetoydivision), has partnered with Earth to Kentucky to present a group exhibition which celebrates the critical history of appropriation art that coopts, satirises and remixes the image Mickey Mouse; the most recognizable and notorious corporate mascot in the history of popular culture.
Free Mickey is an art / toy exhibition which features one of a kind toys, custom masks, and other artworks created by 20+ emerging and established artists from across the US and Canada. The works in the exhibition promise to be transgressive, whimsical parodies; with each artist contributing their own ersatz interpretation of the Mouse’s 94 year history.
The Exhibition runs in person and online from January 1st to January 25th at Earth to Kentucky and Earth2Kentucky.com, with an opening reception at the store and on Instagram live. Pieces go on sale at 6PM EST and there will be an Instagram livestream on Earth to Kentucky’s Instagram account at 5PM EST.
Earth To Kentucky is an alternative toy store and art gallery located in Covington, KY. The shop carries bootleg art toys, designer toys, pop folk art and vintage collectibles. With a focus on classic sci-fi, E2K features some of the most interesting creations the universe has to offer. Run by artists who love toys (and treasure-hunting!), the shop hosts monthly art exhibits and no two visits are ever the same.
Yoyodyne Toy Division (aka Skot Deeming), is a mixed media artist, curator and scholar from Toronto, Canada. Oscillating between one of a kind custom toys, and small run resin castings, Skot treats the action figure form (both the toy and the packaging) as found material - remixing character licences, globalised IPs and pop culture detritus into new configurations; sometimes political, sometimes whimsical. Skot is the curator of the Kitbash Toy Art Microfestival and is currently writing his dissertation on bootleg toys, character licensing and appropriation art. He can be found @yoyodynetoydivision on Instagram.
Beyond "Steamboat Willie Mickey", there are more properties as well, as regaled in the report below... let the
