Five Points Festival recently wrapped on their third year at the Brooklyn Expo Center. The show put on by Clutter Magazine is a celebration all things indie from designer toys, street art, pins, patches tattoos, and beer.
So where to start; at its heart Five Points Festival is still mainly focused on designer toys. In a broad description a designer toy is an art toy or collectible usually created using ABS, vinyl, resin, and other materials and made by independent artists. There are many different styles of designer toys including Sofubi, Kaiju, Customs, blind boxes, and blanks to name a few but unlike massed produced toys found in big box stores designer toys are mainly intended as display collectibles rather than for their playability.
Acknowledging the blurring lines of all the different styles and crafts of the artists the shows aisles were more blended than in previous years with a mix of toy artists, sculpture, traditional art, pins, and patches spread through the expo hall. The festival, which continues to grow, is still refining its focus each year by tweaking things here and there with the more traditional comic book artists and craft food featured in the first year having been significantly reduced to almost non-existence while the pin yard and a new tattoo pavilion were given prominence. However that’s not to say the show got smaller; in fact the show seemed to have more exhibitors this year and had to in-fact use the outside patio as the pin yard area.
Another new addition to the show this year was the tattoo pavilion. Collaborating with artist to create a few designs Clutter gave fans the opportunity to have a permanent piece of art added to any fans collection. Prior to the festival artists including Tara Mcpherson, Ron English, BogXSquad, Jame Groman, Skull Toys, Punk Drunkers, Chris RWK, Quiccs, Jeff Lamm, Czee13 each created a tattoo design which fans could choose from. Also on hand were Quiccs, Jeff Lamm or Czee13, to design personalized custom tattoos.
Returning features of the show included a live painting contest with artists going head to head designing and painting a piece on the spot as well as the 2019 Dunny Show.
Dunny Show
Dunny’s are vinyl designer art toys created by Paul Budnitz and Tristan Eaton, and produced by Kidrobot. The designer art toys feature the art of the worlds most groundbreaking artists, graffiti artists, fashion designers and the Dunny has become an iconic art platform to bring the artistry of emerging artists to the public eye.
Clutter continues to put on a really refined convention for the designer toy market. By collaborating with the premier artists in the field and being selective on the exhibitors allowed to attend the show does exceptional at curating a focused show that attracts the most faithful attendees and gives fans a chance to interact with their favorite artists and designers. I’m very much looking forward what Miranda O’Brien and Josh Kimberg have planned for 2020.
Be sure to check out my other articles, coming soon, featuring some of the exhibitors and artists who made it out to the Brooklyn Expo Center.
