MICHAEL WOLF THE REAL TOY STORY AT K11 SHANGHAI
11 January - 12 February 2014

K11 is pleased to present the “Real Toy Story” by Hong-Kong based German artist, Michael Wolf. The Real Toy Story is an elaborate photographic installation comprised of 20,000 used children’s toys all made in China. An homage to the faces of China’s nameless factory workers that produce much of the world’s inexpensive mass-produced plastic toys consumed by children around the world.

The Real Toy Story is an elaborate photographic installation comprised of 16,000 used children’s toys all made in China. An homage to the faces of China’s nameless factory workers that produce much of the world’s inexpensive mass-produced plastic toys consumed by children around the world.

The Real Toy story is a continuation of Wolf’s interest in the people and societal and economic changes taking place in Hong Kong and southern China. Wolf’s work over the past twenty years originally was inspired as a gift for his son. He collected a large bag of approximately 600 used plastic toys from second hand shops and local markets in America to decorate his boy’s room. The young child was astonished. Wolf quickly realized every single toy he had collected was “Made in China”. The artist then focused on expanding the project by documenting the true faces of Chinese factory workers that produce the real toys. In March 2004, wolf spent 4 weeks traveling through California with a van.

According to Wolf;
‘My criteria was that each toy must have a face, and had to have been ’made in china’… after 30 days, 2000 miles, hundreds of shops and flea markets later, I had collected about 20,000 toys.

They were packed and shipped to my studio in Hong Kong.
I proceeded to sand down the back of each toy creating
a flat, rough surface onto which I could glue strong magnets.
The magnets are a practical solution to allow me to move the toys around the walls and give me flexibility in the way I build the installation. Parallel to the process of preparing the toys for the installation, I visited five toy factories in china where I photographed the workers producing the toys. These portraits are embedded in the installation, and add another level of meaning to the project.’

Michael Wolf was born in Munich, Germany, grew up in the United States. He studied both at the University of California Berkley and at the Folkwang School in Essen (Germany) with renowned photography master Otto Steinert. He has lived in Hong Kong since 1994 and has worked extensively across China. His photographs explore the complex cultural identity of China, from commercial elements of this new global economy to the social and economic implications of the urban density in the city of Hong Kong.Wolf’s photographs have been exhibited extensively in Asia, Europe and the United Sates, including the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Aperture Foundation, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, to name a few. His works are held in many permanent collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, The Brooklyn Museum, The San Jose Museum of Art, California; the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; the Museum Folkwang, Essen and the German Museum for Architecture, Frankfurt. He has won the first prize in the World Press Photo Award Competition on two occasions (2005 & 2010) and an honorable mention (2011). In 2010, wolf was shortlisted for the Prix Pictet Photography Prize.

He has published more than 13 photo books including “Bottrop Ebel 1976” (2012), “Tokyo Compression Three” (2012), “Architecture of Density”(2012), ”Hong Kong Corner Houses” (2011), “Portraits”(2011), “Tokyo Compression Revisited” (2011), “Real Fake Art” (2011), “fy” (2010), “A Series of Unfortunate Events”(2010), “Tokyo Compression”(2010) “Hong Kong Inside/outside”(2009), “The Transparent City” (2008) and “Sitting in China” (2002).