the clockwork pet: roullet and descamps

A prim white kitty in spectacles fans herself. A basket of pink flowers holds a bunny surprise. And a kinda disreputable lion can still leap, though he's a hundred and nine years old.

All these fantastical things are late 19th - early 20th c clockwork toys - automata - from the Paris firm of Roullet & Descamps. Roullet had opened a tool-production workshop in 1866 and shortly after switched to automaton toys with his first partner. Descamps, the shop foreman, married into the family in 1879, and descendants ran the company till 1995. Their productions mirrored the fancies of the France they lived in: cute pets, dolls in the latest fashions, clowns, clever monkeys. The quality and poetic cleverness of their creations have been honored by a museum in the village of Souillac.

You may find more of the firm's history here. And here's a bunny in a cabbage. And a walking, meowing cat. All examples from Britain's Automatomania.

momoyo torimitsu: cute as discomfort

Big bright vinyl bunnies, too big for their space, crushed down over you. They ought to be cute and funny. Are they? There's so many of them. They aren't fitting comfortably. Something isn't right here.

Exactly, according to Japanese artist Momoyo Torimitsu. The bunny installation was called Somehow I don't feel comfortable, and it was designed specially to not fit its Parisian gallery space. Torimitsu was illustrating the effect of cuteness used in excess in order to buffer or gloss over issues such as individuality or empowerment.


The gallery show page here. And for an adventure, Momoyo Torimitsu's website here (click on the first page and then try clicking "Projects."