Remix Culture, how Asian designers changed the game, part 7

Hello friends, I hope the year is treating you well. If not then I hope today goes easy on you. If you’ve been keeping up with the blog in the past few weeks then you’ll remember that I have been talking about Michael Lau, and the birth of urban vinyl art. Previously I mentioned that the creators from Generation-X were remixing culture into something new, and fresh. They were pulling their influences from growing up. Everything from music, to fashion, movies, video games, and even toys ended up coloring their work. They redefined comic books, manga, video games, and collectables for the next few generations.

I was usually slow to catch up to the trends when they took off, but I was at the right place, and able to see the rise of urban vinyl from “The Godfather” himself. I’ve often been asked if I had a favorite gardener figure from Mr. Lau. There was one that I loved head, and shoulders above the rest. However like many of his figures I never expected it to be released in its original 12” format. Just a reminder that Lau sold only a handful of 12” figures in the late ‘90s. This was before his first international gallery shows. The ones that I know specifically he sold in the Hong Kong Toy Expo were Maxx, and Uncle. The last time one popped up at auction it sold for $35,000 USD. 

A decade later he did small runs of Maxx, Tattoo, and BB. There were about 599 made. These releases cost around $400, or more for the special editions. Those weren’t as rare as the limited edition of Maxx that he released to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the gardeners. In 2018 he created 9 Maxx figures that were identical to the ones he had sold decades earlier, including the hand made box. Those that missed the boat the first time around had a chance to purchase them for a few grand. As with some of his rarest items they were only available via lottery system at the gallery during his shows. When one of these was resold at auction it went for $15,000 USD. In case you were wondering how many gardeners there were you could see all 113 of them on my fan page. Let’s assume that each one was actually made to buy, do you think you could pick a favorite?

If I had money, and were born in Hong Kong I’d have a fantastic collection. For someone living in the US in the early 2000’s when international sellers were scarce my collection was halfway decent. This was especially true for someone that was broke all the time. I stopped collecting when my future wife entered the scene, as I knew I would be spending my money on our family. Also collectors had priced me out of the market. Drops that I would normally score would sell out before I could even enter my shipping info online.

Yet none of the 12” figures that Lau released were my absolute favorite. The re-release of Maxx certainly came close, the versions of young SKATEMAXX, and older WORKMAXX were also brilliant. If money were no object then they’d be mine. Yet they were not my absolute favorite gardener. I had said on many occasions, and to this day I believe that the greatest vinyl figure ever released was child f. The King of the Crazychildren. The entire line of Crazychildren were brilliant. The release of each figure included an extra piece. If you collected all the figures then you could assemble a mystery figure out of those pieces that was based on Lau himself. The S.F.C.C. or science fiction crazy children set pieces could assemble a massive “robot” Lau made of vinyl that looked like cardboard boxes.

With all that said child f. was on another level. He debuted around the time that a bunch of contemporaries were flooding the market with “me too” vinyl figures. The King figure was more than a challenge to the rest, he was a statement. He was perched on cardboard boxes of previous Lau releases that were taped together. He had a gold tooth, a soft plastic crown, and in his hand was a mini Lau figure. The tiny figure was the original mystery figure from the first generation of Crazychildren. His contemporaries simply didn't have the experience designing characters, let alone a history they could pull from in order to create such a self-aware piece of art. Years later Michael released a larger version of the King that was more in the proportions of the 12” gardener scale. This time his crown was reflective, he had a more recent “Crazy Michael” figure in his hand, and he had a red cape, which was actually a shower curtain. As cool as the classic, and new version of the Kings were they were still not my favorite gardener.

There was a variation of Maxx that I felt was almost equal to the King, and in some ways even better. Soul Maxx was one of the new gardeners that made his debut with the garden(palm)er series. These were 1/12 scale, or about 6 to 8 inches. This version of Maxx was a kid, much younger than he had been presented before. The funny thing was that Michael would always sculpt him with some chin hair, even when he painted a toddler Maxx, the character still had a beard. Soul Maxx was presented in skull paint. He was colored entirely in black and white, including his clothing, and shoes. The other palmer figures were contained in white spray cans, except for Soul Maxx. His can was jet black, with a tombstone on the front. The figure included a skateboard, ghost sheet, black crown, and wire stand so you could make the figure look like he was floating above his board. When you saw the figure it was easy to see why he might be my favorite. Sadly I never got the figure, also he was not my absolute favorite gardener. That honor would belong to one of the tallest characters in gardener canon.

Remember when I started this series weeks ago I mentioned that I really loved basketball? I genuinely meant it. When I first discovered the art of Michael Lau, I had no idea that there were basketball players in his universe. I simply thought they were just a bunch of cool skaters. The first time I saw all of the original 101 figures was when I got my hands on the gardenergala book. It was published in Japan as part of his PARCO gallery tour. The photos in the book were to scale, so I could see how they would have appeared in person. I went through the book with my brothers, slowly turning the pages, and being amazed with every new page. The amount of detail was absurd. My brothers couldn’t believe that each was more amazing than the previous, then I got to the middle of the book and gasped. Unlike the regular gardeners which were around 12.5” tall the lanky Black figures were closer to 15” in height, proportionally they were seven-footers. They were so tall than the tops of the afros were cut off on the page. 

Of these figures Jordon, the 49th gardener in the series, was my absolute favorite hands down. For the record No War, Tattoo, and Maxx were close runners-up. Seeing the basketball gardeners was a revelation. I had the same sense of “This is it! This is what I was waiting for!” As I did when I first saw Maxx. It was an artistic interpretation of basketball culture. It hit me even harder than the paintings by Kadir Nelson. Everything about the figure was brilliant. It encapsulated the elements of both professional, and street basketball. The size of the character, the afro, and sideburns were a callback to the legends of the past like Julius “Dr. J” Erving. His name, and the black, red, and white colors of his outfit were a nod to the G.O.A.T. Michael Jordan who was just about to retire for the second and final time.

Yet somehow Jordon's look also predicted a generation of bearded, street-influenced NBA players. Even Jordon’s accessories were spot on. The Gatorade bottle looked tiny in his massive hands, he had a towel to catch his sweat between games, the knee sleeve to protect his left knee, and of course the Jordan Air Force 1’s rounded out the look. If there could be such a thing as a perfect basketball vinyl figure then this was it. It would be the gardener figure that I envied the most, and the one that I knew Michael would never release to collectors. There was an outside chance that he would make a mini gardener out of the figure.

Sure enough seven years later, in 2008 Lau released Jordan in the smaller scale, and it was the one figure I absolutely had to get my hands on. I remember going in to work early, and loading the ordering screen on multiple school computers, my brother even helped me keep hitting refresh, and made sure I could get my hands on one. Always making sure to appease his fans Lau made sure that Jordon was considerably taller than the other mini gardeners he had released, so that they would have the accurate difference in the new format. Jordon would pop up on occasion over the next decade. He appeared on tees, and even a fiberglass statue that could only be purchased from a gallery via a lottery drawing.

Michael knew that he had hit perfection when he created the character. When he was approached by Wieden+ Kennedy, the people that created the Nike commercials, to design athletes for an ad he essentially removed Jordon’s afro, and put a #69 on his jersey. Even as an actor in a foam costume he looked amazing. Eventually Lau was able to collaborate with Michael Jordan, and release a “twenty-three” figure for collectors. His body was a recolor of Jordon’s but the head was entirely new, including the trademark tongue sticking out.

Around the time that the Jordan figure came out Eric So, and CoolRain were also designing vinyl figures for the NBA. By this point the relationship between Nike, and Lau was strong. They would collaborate on new exhibitions where the gardeners were given entirely new Nike sports outfits. Lau would even get to design a few exclusive Nike SB (skateboard) shoes, which today would sell for $9000, but not nearly as desirable as his padded cell sneakers for his “Crazy Michael” release which could fetch you $15000 today. Lau also got to design the uniforms, and sneakers for the Chinese national team during the 2008 Beijing Olympics. One of his massive paintings, the “Wall of Jordan” which was created for the 30th Anniversary of the Air Jordan brand would sell at auction for over $160,000 USD. It was official. Michael was not only an accomplished artist, he was shaping the culture that had influenced him tremendously.

I knew that his figures would only get rarer, and costlier from that point forward. It was impossible to satisfy the demands of the collector community, the art crowd, and fashion labels at the same time. Something had to give. Sadly I had to walk away from collecting Lau’s future releases before the start of 2010. I never stopped loving his work, and kept my fan page going for years after. I had to restored it after a hiatus because I wanted new fans to know where the movement came from. With that said I still had a desire to collect figures that inspired me. I knew that Lau would never release a collectable 15” Jordon figure, as Maxx, BB, and Tattoo had been consistently more popular. It didn’t stop me from tracking down the next best thing, but I’ll talk about that in a future blog. I’d like to know if you had a favorite Lau figure, or a favorite figure by any other designer. Tell me about it in the comments section. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!