Designer toy in pop surrealism in the context of the relationship of art and play

Since the 20th century, socio-cultural, economic, technological, and ideological developments have created a new world where almost all disciplines, notions, and thought forms can interact and boundaries become increasingly blurred. The concept of art has sought to merge with life, society, and play. Art and play have been likened to each other because they provide a liberating space for people to escape daily life's problems and express their creativity. Throughout art history, various movements like Dada, Surrealism, Cubism, and Pop Art have interacted with play. The contemporary movement known as Pop Surrealism, emerging in the 1970s and still growing, became the starting point for this research due to its close relationship with this interaction. The study's general aim, which uses a scanning model and exhibits theoretical-analytical features, first addresses the concepts of play and toy, then explores how these concepts interact with art, focusing on the role of play and design toys in the Pop Surrealism movement. In line with the data obtained, it has been seen that in order to criticize the cultural and artistic norms in the movement, fantastic universes are created in a playful manner by bringing together cute-uncanny elements and surreal-pop images in a carnivalesque style, deep meanings are hidden in them, and they are transformed into an actor by inviting the audience to question. Quite surprising character designs have been found in these fascinating, fairy-tale universes. It was inevitable for the trend that came to the forefront with these designs to be caught in the "design toys" wave and the artists turned their fantastic characters into design toys. It has been observed that pop surrealism eliminates the boundaries between high art-low art, intellectual-populism, and the concepts of art-play-toy, with both a playful and a mischief-making attitude, through its paintings and designer toys. Keywords: Art and Play, Toy, Pop Surrealism, Designer Toy