The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York has recalled one of its store’s popular holiday gift items, a series of snow globes designed by contemporary Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara, because they “may crack or fracture, posing a hazard of laceration”.
According to a publication on the website of the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, around 1,915 of the cutesy Little Tramp The snow globes, which sold for $85 each while on sale last November through the MoMA design store’s brick-and-mortar locations and website, have sold out. Buyers are eligible for a full refund and are asked to “stop using and discard the recalled snow globes.” A withdrawal notice on the MoMA Design Store website adds that it “received 39 reports of cracks or fractures of the snow globe. No injuries were reported.”
O Little Tramp Snow globes are typical of Nara’s anime-inflected iconography kawaii endearing characters but also enigmatic or even threatening. They present a figure based on their 1999 sculpture series Little Pilgrims (Night Walk), and were available with a blue, red, or yellow figure. Each was placed inside a spherical glass container on a wooden base.
Perversely, Nara’s memory Little Tramp Snow globes can make them even more sought after among collectors, fueling a secondary market for the delicious but dangerous gifts. As of this writing, there are two eBay listings for complete sets of all three snow globes for more than $1,000, a significant profit from the $255 it would have cost to buy them at MoMA in November. (Other aftermarket sites, including Artsy and 1stDibs, seem to have all been removed Little Tramp listed.)
And while these particular Nara snowball characters met an ignoble fate, they are not his only experiments with the form. An online reasoned catalog maintained by the artist’s foundation lists three other artist snowball products still in circulation.
