‘Meccano work’: Eduardo Paolozzi’s kits

• Published in: The sculpture journal 2016, Vol.25 (1), p.101-115
• Main Author: Thomas, Elly
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1366-2724; 1366-2724; 1756-9923
• DOI: 10.3828/sj.2016.25.7

In an interview wth Eduardo Paolozzi in 1965, Richard Hamilton suggested that the logic of the toy kit might have made its way through to Paolozzi’s construction methods. Hamilton characterized Paolozzi’s sculpture and printwork as ‘Meccano work’. Taking Hamilton’s description literally, this article explores how Paolozzi’s enduring love of toys – particularly the toy kit – informed a distinctive working approach to mass culture and the ‘as found’. The Krazy Kat Arkive – Paolozzi’s personal collection of popular culture donated to the Victoria and Albert Museum – documents an obsession with the toy kit through an overwhelming range of examples that seem to offer a world in kit form. This article considers how one can use the ‘toy kit’ as a way to revitalize and re-engage with Paolozzi’s methods that, in the present literature, so often seem to stop short in their characterization as collage.