The Istanbul Toy Museum is hosting a new toy exhibition. The exhibition presents to visitors 42 wooden works by the Venezuelan artist Mario Calderon, inspired by the traditions, games and toys of his country. A unique opportunity to get to know life and toy-making traditions in Latin America and the Caribbean, the exhibition of extraordinary works by the Venezuelan toymaker Mario Calderón can be visited at the Istanbul Toy Museum from 5 December. With his works, Calderón invites us to set our dreams free, feed our curiosity and keep the child within us alive.

The exhibition will be open from 5 December 2019 to 5 January 2020, every day except Monday, from 09:30 to 18:00.

Mario Calderon was born in Caracas in 1955. He studied music. He also studied medicine for 8 semesters at the University of Los Andes in Mérida. In 1988 he began to make wooden toys. He later founded the Pilar’s Toys (Juguetes del Pilar) Workshop. Since 1994 he has taught wooden toy-making classes. He has held exhibitions in his country and outside Venezuela. His exhibitions abroad have taken place in Miami (Florida), Martinique and Lisbon. In 1996 he received an Honourable Mention at the First Salon of Folk Art and Crafts of the Jacobo Borges Museum. Today Calderon has filled his workshop in Mérida with wooden carousels, acrobats, circus horses, dancers and lion tamers. In fact, the artist started this work with the idea of a personal collection of toys. Spinning tops, tin soldiers and toy cars had been with Mario Calderon throughout his childhood. Later, he began to collect from different places these toys of his childhood, which slowly disappeared as technology developed. In 1988 he decided to stay in the city of Mérida and open Pilar’s Toy Workshop. He also takes part in solo and group exhibitions.