Hajime Sorayama's $10k Robot Penis Needs No Introduction
NSFW is Richardson's SOP. Andrew Richardson's eponymous magazine and clothing brand are informed entirely by an obsession with sex.
Nude Kim Kardashian covers? Check. Pornhub merch? Of course.
So, when you get Richardson together with Hajime Sorayama, Mr. Sexy Robot himself, it only follows that the duo would create some especially racy goods.
But the loungewear printed with some of Sorayama's titillating humanoids, including one image ripped straight from the cover of Heavy Metal, are pretty tame. It's nothing that Soryama heads haven't seen before, at least.
I mean, who hasn't dropped collaborative Sorayama merch these days?
No, the main event is the duo's collaborative $10,000 robotic penis.
A riff on Richardson's own phallic design, the glistening metal sculpture is secretly a incense chamber though, considering how exclusive (and expensive) it is, I doubt most of these will see the receiving end of an incense stick.
Limited to five ever made, the robo dicks will only ever be sold in-store at the Nanzuka Underground gallery in Tokyo — which reps Sorayama — so this is a real collector's penis. Collector's piece, I mean.
There's a larger dialogue to be had about Sorayama's zeal for willfully objectifying women as sexualized robots: valid arguments could be made about how his work criticizes and subverts the male gaze or exploits it.
One could even make the same points for Richardson's oeuvre.
But regardless of how you feel about Sorayama's work, it's admittedly refreshing to see the Japanese artist tackle the male anatomy with a level of obsessive detail comparable to his futuristic pin-ups.
I can't even say the phallic collectible would be a less bizarre piece to display in one's home than, say, a Supreme brick or one of Sorayama's other hedonistic paintings.
So, long live the robot cock. At least it's not yet another NFT.
