A Celebration of Monsters, Superheroes, and Villains in traveling museum exhibitions!
SuperMonster市City! traveling exhibits are derived from co-founder David Barnhill’s private collection of an estimated 200,000 toys, posters, games, books, films, and more. Co-founder Stephen Rueff curates the objects in social and political contexts through reflective and informative texts, artist profiles, and commentary. Barnhill and Rueff bring new insights to America’s iconic mythical figures from America’s Golden Age of toys.
2024 Exhibition Dates:
Spies and Space: Toys of the Cold War Era is an exhibition reflects on how the drama and intrigue of real-world espionage, and the fascination with outer space, seeped into American and Russian popular culture during the Cold War Era. Follow the links below for more info!
Sheboygan County History Musuem
February – April 2024
Dacotah Prairie Musuem
May – September 2024
Castle Museum of Saginaw County Musuem
September 2024 – January 2025
2024 Exhibition Dates:
This exhibition explores how American monsters, superheroes, and villains impacted American culture from the 1960s to the 1990s and became iconic characters reflecting America’s changing values and social tensions. Through this unique display of hundreds of toys, posters, media, and text panels, this exhibition has been enjoyed by thousands of people in cultural institutions across the U.S. Follow the links below for more information!
Science Central
June – September 2024
Sacramento History Museum
September 2024 – January 2025
Recommendation:
The St. Louis Public Library Director of Marketing and Events
Cathy Heimberger wrote the following recommendation.
“As the director of marketing for the St. Louis Public Library I am tasked with bringing exhibits to our Central Library that are unique and have a broad appeal. I met David and Stephen while attending an American Association of Museums conference and I knew immediately that I wanted to work with them and bring this one of a kind experience to St. Louis. They didn’t disappoint.
“Our exhibit consisted of more than 500 items from David’s personal collection and attracted visitors of all ages and backgrounds. The exhibit was a natural fit for the library as monsters and villains have lived on the shelves of public libraries from our earliest days. We saw a spike in our graphic novel checkouts during the four month run of the exhibit. I highly recommend bringing this exhibit to your organization.”
Check out these pictures from the St. Louis Public Library
Exhibited October 2022 – January 2023
Video Testimonials!
Goldstein Museum of Design Director
Lin Nelson-Mayson interview and exhibition images
Historic Duluth Depot Program Director
Briana Johnson interview and exhibition images
Video: Attendees share their thoughts on our exhibitions
Click this LINK for interviews and installation images (if asked, password is SMC)
SuperMonster市City! exhibits strive to be carbon neutral!
As a proud member of TerraPass, we offset 100% of CO2 emissions from shipping and related travel.
We inform host institutions of the amount of CO2 emissions upon request for use in their sustainability reports.
For more on SuperMonster市City!
Contact email: Stephen@SuperMonsterCity.com
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Toy photos above by Steve Zerby
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SuperMonster市City
SuperMonsterCity! celebrates monsters, superheroes and villains in traveling exhibitions and more!
I found these pictures amongst my parents photo albums. Way back in the day at Christmas, I would take pictures of all the incredible toys I was given. These are a snapshot into a bygone day with a terrible camera. Also included a couple of pictures from my early youth, please enjoy!
Hello friends and fiends let’s take a look at another bin of toys that did not make the cut to go to our next exhibit. There are toys here from the last 20 years and 60 years ago all sorts of incredible fantastic imaginative toys that these days are maybe forgotten and unloved, take a look and tell me what you remember. SuperMonster市City #toycollection #popculture #monsterkids
Once again, it is story time in the Crypts of SuperMonsterCity. Let’s read from Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes. Here is the story of the Three Little Pigs in an irreverent and modernesque framework, please enjoy! SuperMonster市City #threelittlepigs #roalddahl #storytime
Let’s take a look at Horrible Hamilton. This is one of the great unsung toys of the mid 60s. It was made by Remco. It was ugly and I absolutely loved it. Here for the first time, I am going to show you Hamilton‘s Invader Cave, which was just given to me as a gift AND wait hold on!!! We are going to pull the drawstrings and see if Hamilton and the spooky spider work. I am so excited, take a look.  SuperMonster市City #vintagetoys #remco #horriblehamilton #cooltoys
Join us for story hour at SuperMonsterCity. Let me read you the story of Little Red Riding Hood as written by Roald Dahl. It is not the story you are used to. I love Roald Dahl and if you don’t know who he is or haven’t read his works I hope this might inspire you. Please enjoy this crazy fun, loving poem. Cheers. SuperMonster市City #fairytales #roalddahl #littleredridinghood
Welcome and come to the Crypts and look at some crazy stuff. I just happened to find a Wolfman glass from I don’t know when, and a cool convict action figure, please tell me who he is AND a Michael Jackson Pepsi bottle from Japan in the early to mid 90s. All this stuff and more lives in the pop culture archives of SuperMonsterCity, you tell me what you think is cool and tell me who the convict guy is, I don’t know.  SuperMonster市City #vintagetoys #michaeljackson #monster #labyrinthmovie