It All Starts Somewhere:

Jailbreak Collective (then Jailbreak Toys) was founded by artist Jason Feinberg in 2005. Trained as a sculptor, Feinberg came upon an idea one day that would change his life: “what if, instead of selling one piece of his work for $5,000 he could sell 5,000 pieces of his work for $1 each?”

With that notion in tow, along with a small loan from friends and family, Feinberg officially launched Jailbreak from his apartment in Brooklyn, New York. The name “Jailbreak” is not derived from escaping prison, or unlocking the iPhone (we were around far before that!), but instead from the notion of making a career out of doing something you love (read: not working for the man).

The company’s first release was the Oddfellows (now known as Little Giants), a series of miniature sculptures depicting history’s most fascinating characters. To date, the four collections (artists, writers, revolutionaries and scientists), along with the 22 individual characters (Van Gogh, Gandhi, Einstein, Beethoven, Shakespeare, Warhol, Picasso, Curie, Darwin, Freud, Khalo, Che, Malcolm X, Newton, Poe, Lenin, Dali, Mao, Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Tesla and Twain), have collectively sold over 40,000 units. In late 2009, Lenin, Joyce, Woolf, Tesla and Curie were discontinued from the series.

In 2008, Feinberg scored his first bonafide hit by being the first company to market a Barack Obama-themed product — The Obama Action Figure. The action figure spawned four variations–Hope, Inaugural, DIY and Summer Suit–and helped raise over $10,000 for Obama’s campaign. Since it’s launch, the Obama Action Figure has sold over 200,000 units and counting.  Following that success, the company released the Michelle Obama Action Figure in November 2009. She is nearly sold out!

Jailbreak Collective Here and Now:

As of March 2010, we’ve dropped the “Toys” from the end of our name and will now be known as the “Jailbreak Collective”. The reason for this is twofold: First, we aren’t simply making toys anymore, rather, in tandem with a philosophical shift, we are makers of Product Art. Second, we are now collaborating with a number of artists and thinkers who have great ideas for products, but not necessarily the means to get them designed, manufactured and commercially distributed. As an aside, if you are an artist who would like to collaborate with us, please click here for further information. We want to work with you; that’s what the Collective is all about!

There was a time when music could only be enjoyed by going to a live performance. Likewise, if one wanted to see actors perform their craft, a theater was the only way to go. In the 20th century, though, both of these art forms skyrocketed to popular prominence by adapting their distribution models to changing technologies. Vinyl records and celluloid film transformed music and film into commodities…into products. Today, it’s hard to find a person who doesn’t own music or movies. But what about art? Somehow, through all the years, art’s business model has remained surprisingly consistent: one-of-a-kind works, sold in galleries, by dealers, to well-off clients. It was elitist and inaccessible, two things we’ve set out to change with the Product Art movement.

Much like the record label and the film studio do in their respective industries, we seek out talented artists and sign them to contracts. We cultivate their talents and collaborate on the creation of new and original works. We then fund and coordinate the production, promotion, sales and distribution of the work. Instead of working for a one-time fee, as is the norm for visual artists, the artists receive royalties on gross sales, giving them more of a stake in their own work.

Our first foray into the Product Art industry came with the release of the App Magnets in March 2010. Designed by Brooklyn-based artist Alyssa Zeller, each of the 18 magnets is inspired by the application icons on the original iPhone. Likewise, the magnets come packaged together in a cardboard iPhone replica. The initial run sold out in just over 24 hours.

The Jailbreak Blog:

The Jailbreak blog will here-on-out serve as the information hub of the Product Art Movement. Our content is now categorized in pure Journalism 101 fashion:

• WHO: Interviews with and features on industry innovators and insiders
• WHAT: The coolest, most noteworthy products and ideas around
• WHEN: The past, present and future of product art
• WHERE: Discover what’s trendy from Brooklyn to Bangkok and everywhere in-between
• WHY: Learn from a product artist what it takes to be a product artist)
• HOW: Information on how to take an abstract idea and turn it into a tangible product

Because people are just beginning to discuss, commercialize and widely distribute Product Art, we felt it best to stick with the basics in order to properly assimilate everyone to what we’re doing. The good thing is: once it becomes a cultural phenomenon, you will have already been in the know!

We also have two new regular features: Things That Might Be Art and Made in China. The former spawned from a fundamental question that we deal on a daily basis: what is art, anyway? We will present you, the reader, with something that just might be considered art and then ask you to make the final decision. The latter will be an ongoing conversation between us and James Murphy, a British man who works an an industrial engineer at our factory in Guandong, China, just north of Hong Kong. All of these categories are discoverable by clicking those handy little tabs up top.

If you would like to contribute to our blog, please email us! We’re always searching for talented writers and artists to join our team.

Product Art:

We’ve mentioned Product Art quite a few times in the last couple of paragraphs and so you might find yourself wondering what it’s all about. Well, we are asking people to move past paintings and sculptures and open up to the idea of a product as an original work of art. The product is the medium.

To be continued…