Who or what is KAWS …?

Strolling through Frieze Sculpture Park on a sunny Wednesday morning with two bored children on hand there was nothing around that seemed to make the hours until opening of the fair shorter. But at a time I had almost given up there it was. A giant wooden Pinocchio, Mickey Mouse or Simpsonesque clown? Whatever it was my children were immediately delighted. While they started exploring the, OK lets call its sculpture, I somehow couldn’t help but wonder. I would consider myself as a person with quite some interest in contemporary art, but I would really have allocated this piece more to a theme park than a contemporary art fair.

KAWS Final days

KAWS “Small lie”, (2013) at Frieze Sculpture Park, London Oct 2014

KAWS Pharrell Williams

closeup of the KAWS Pinocchio

Watching at it for some time I found that it mostly resembles a faceless Pinocchio and standing there that tall it had something more nightmare than cuteness. The tag read KAWS “Small lie”. The four letter abbreviation suggested to me that its an artist, who originated from the graffiti scene, like JR, whose art I somehow learned to appreciate within recent years.

KAWS Kurf

Another frightful little guy at the Gallerie Perrotin booth at Frieze.

After finally getting into the fair and meeting with my mom and another friend of us I couldn’t help but start to ask them about KAWS. And somehow it came to me as a surprise they were very familiar with him and even pointed out to me that I already own a piece of KAWS without knowing – the CDG Pharrell Williams GIRL bottle – and that I have seen an estimated 1000 of KAWS products while strolling through the Parisian concept store Colette within recent years. Honestly I don’t know why I had never been aware of him. Maybe because I am not a loyal devotee to Japanese vinyl collectible toys? Maybe because I have never been too interested in the hip hop, skateboarder or surfer street wear scene and usually ascend the stair at Colette very quickly to enter my beloved fashion floor as well as the beauty box? Maybe because I have always considered XX eyes as something too general to catch my attention? From Nirvana’s Smiley face logo to one sided X eye in the works of Paris based graffiti artist and nightlife entrepreneur André Saraiva they are simply everywhere. No matter whether KAWS never managed to raise my awareness in the past this time he had managed to make me curious to learn more!

KAWS snoopy

KAWS Snoopy at Salon 94

During Frieze London KAWS was represented with a major show at Galerie Perrotin and with one Snoopy drawing by Salon 94. KAWS (Brian Donnelly) studied illustration in NYC and shortly worked as a graphic designer for Disney. He celebrated major success with a company called “OriginalFake“, which sold limited edition vinyl collectible toys as well as street wear. Despide of the success the company was shut down in 2013. Besides the work on his OriginalFake brand KAWS is and was a very popular “collaboration artist”. He made a record cover for Kanye West, a bottle for Hennessy, watches with Ikepod and collaborated with Jason Wu on some prints for his spring 2012 collection just to name a few!

KAWS Final days

KAWS “Final days” sculpture as featured in the Malaga retrospective.

His signature style involves large figurative sculptures, called companions. Companions are comic heroins like smurfs, Pinocchio or Mickey Mouse, which become KAWS-yfied by the removal of a face as well as the addition of XX eyes and bone structures coming out of the head. He puts them into poses that are closer to real human feelings than the hero like comic figure poses. The companions are a direct continuation of KAWS work on vinyl toys thats why they very often have the joints and look like they could be moved!

KAWS toys

KAWS painting at Gallerie Perrotin

KAWS companion

another KAWS painting

Another section of his work is focused on abstract acrylic painting. In these paintings he usually deconstructs a comic heroine into plenty geometric shapes, which he reassembles into something new. These paintings can be super colorful or just different shades of black!

KAWS small lie

KAWS Snoopy

snoopy

KAWS Snoopy reloaded

After learning all those things about the arist I can say that I slowly feel that I can connect with the work of KAWS to some extend. The wish to know more and more details and to see our favorite celebrities in more human ways is the reason why we love to see paparazzi shoots, the reason why we open magazines like Vanity Fair, the reason why we watch reality shows, why Kim Kardashian is an icon of our time and yes its the reason why we check our instagram feed that frequently for news from Cara Delevingne and co. Somehow I feel that KAWS is doing social media and reality TV for comic and animated figures. Although they loose their makeup and face they become human and accessible!

I am definitely curious to learn more about him and hope that the Rizzoli book “KAWS” as well as the exhibition book “Final days“, which was published in line with his first European retrospective in Malaga earlier this year will help me!!

Have you already heard about KAWS? What do you think about him? Just commercial design or real art?