Jon Beinart will ship a small Toddlerpede doll sculpture to the winner of this auction.
This is Jon Beinart's largest Toddlerpede doll sculpture (2009) and was built with approximately 100 plastic baby dolls and a welded copper armature. The piece was significantly larger than the artist himself and was dismantled a few years after it's creation. The doll parts were then reused to build other Toddlerpede sculptures. This photo was taken by Max Milne.
Images of Jon's Toddlerpedes were published in numerous art books and magazines over the years and frequently went viral online.
Jon stumbled upon his Toddlerpede series by accident while messing around with plastic baby dolls. In 2002 he joined a few doll torsos together and noticed (to his delight) that they formed insect-like segments, and voilà, the infamous Toddlerpede was born. Jon found his creations adorable and hilarious and was initially surprised when people were offended and even shocked by them. Over the years, as his Toddlerpedes have spread all over the Internet, they have elicited strong reactions and have even been the subject of hate mail. Some people have found them endearing and amusing, while others have assumed that they are addressing issues, such as radiation and genetic mutation, or the subversion of childhood innocence. While Jon has enjoyed interpreting the unconscious meaning behind his Toddlerpedes and has even mused about their natural habitat and an alternate world in which they may have evolved, he prefers to leave them open to interpretation so that viewers can make up their own stories. Over the years, Jon’s Toddlerpedes evolved from small centipede- and scorpion-like creatures to complex hydra-like monstrosities with hundreds of doll torsos. The largest Toddlerpede was significantly larger than the artist himself. While Jon’s profile had grown with the notoriety of his Toddlerpedes, images of them were frequently shared online with no credit, so most people who encountered Toddlerpedes had no idea who had created them. While this bothered Jon at the beginning, he gradually came to accept that his babies had grown up and left home and had taken on a life of their own. Jon created his last Toddlerpede sculpture in 2011 and decided to move on and dedicate more time to drawing and painting.
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