Kaws

Brian Donnelly (born November 4, 1974), known professionally as Kaws (stylized as KAWS), is an American artist and designer. His work includes repeated use of a cast of figurative characters and motifs, some dating back to the beginning of his career in the 1990s,[1] initially painted in 2D and later realised in 3D. Some of his characters are his own creations while others are reworked versions of existing icons.

Kaws
Born
Brian Donnelly

(1974-11-04) November 4, 1974
Jersey City, New Jersey
NationalityUS
EducationSchool of Visual Arts
Known forPainting, graphic design, sculpture, graffiti, toys, collectibles
Websitekawsone.com

Kaws' sculptures range in size from a few inches to ten metres tall,[1] and are made from various materials including fiberglass, aluminium, wood, bronze, and a steel pontoon inflatable raft.[2][3]

His work is exhibited in galleries and museums, held in the permanent collections of public institutions, and avidly collected by individuals[4] including music producer Swizz Beatz, internet figure PewDiePie, rapper Pharrell Williams,[5] and members of South Korean group BTS. A number of books illustrating his work have been published. He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, creating sculptures, acrylic paintings on canvas, and screen prints while also collaborating commercially, predominantly on limited edition toys, but also clothing, skate decks, and other products.

Early life
Kaws' "Companion (Passing Through)" at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth

Donnelly was born in 1974 in Jersey City, New Jersey[6] where he attended St. Anthony High School. As a teenager, he painted his tag "KAWS" on the roof of an area building so that he could see it outside while attending class in high school.[7] He went on to attend the School of Visual Arts in New York City, receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts in illustration in 1996.[8] Following graduation, he briefly worked for Jumbo Pictures as a freelance animator painting backgrounds for the animated series 101 Dalmatians, Daria and Doug.[9] Animator by day, and graffiti artist by night,[10] Donnelly created a name for himself, KAWS, based on the way the letters looked and the word in fact has no meaning. Illegal graffiti was the first step of Kaws learning his craft.[4][11] After moving to New York City in the 1990s, he started subvertising billboards, bus shelters, and phone booths [4] using a key gifted to him by friend and fellow graffiti artist, Barry Mcgee, as well as bus shelters using a key he created for himself.[12][11] Since, he has subvertised in Paris, London, Berlin, and Tokyo.[13] In 1999 KAWS made his first toy, Companion, a vinyl figure of Mickey Mouse with x-ed out eyes, with Japanese company Bounty Hunter.[11] His influences come from traditional life painters, such as Gerhard Richter, Claes Oldenburg, and Chuck Close,[14] and he has been compared to the likes of Andy Warhol [15][6] for his appeal across the market and ability to blur lines between commercial and fine art.

Artworks

Kaws' acrylic paintings and sculpture have many repeating images, all meant to be universally understood, surpassing languages and cultures. Some of his characters that date back to the beginning of his career in the 1990s: Companion (created in 1999),[4] Accomplice, Chum and Bendy.[1] His series, The Kimpsons, subverted the American cartoon The Simpsons. In addition, he has reworked other familiar characters such as Mickey Mouse, the Michelin Man, the Smurfs, Snoopy, and SpongeBob SquarePants.

Kaws has periodically shown both paintings and products at Colette in Paris since 1999. His work was included in the traveling exhibition Beautiful Losers, which started at the Cincinnati Contemporary Art Center and travelled throughout the US and Europe, including his then largest museum show to date at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, GA in 2012.[16]

Kaws' "Companion", a grayscale clown-like figure based on Mickey Mouse with his face obscured by both hands,and has two bones sticking out of his head, it was adapted into a balloon for the 2012 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade,[4] as part of its "Blue Sky Gallery" along with other balloons.

Having already created oversized sculptures in the past, he started to produce further sculptures of his "Companion" character for exhibitions in Switzerland,[17] Hong Kong,[18] Malaga,[19] London[20] and China.[21]

On April 1, 2019 at Sotheby's in Hong Kong, The Kaws Album (2005), a painting by Kaws commissioned by Nigo, sold for 115.9 million Hong Kong dollars, or about $14.7 million U.S. dollars, a new auction record for the artist at the time.[22][23] Comic book artist Bill Morrison felt "ripped off" because the work was simply a "traced interpretation of my 'Simpsons Yellow Album'",[24] which itself was a parody of the cover art for the Beatles album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band replaced with characters from the Simpsons.[25][26]

Style

Kaws’ work can be characterized by an emphasis on color and line, distinctive graphics, such as the repeated use of “x”s on hands and nose and ears, and a re-appropriation of pop culture icons such as Mickey Mouse, the Michelin Man, the Smurfs, Snoopy, and SpongeBob SquarePants. His characters are generally depicted in a shy and/or powerless pose often with their hands over their nose. In his paintings, Kaws always deconstructs his appropriation of iconic characters into shapes that produces abstract paintings.[27] https://www.perrotin.com/artists/Kaws/55#biography

Products and commercial collaborations
Kaws's MTV Moonman trophy

Since his first vinyl toy with the Japanese clothing brand Bounty Hunter in 1999,[28] he has collaborated on toys with other Japanese companies: Nigo for A Bathing Ape (Bape), Medicom Toy, and Santastic!. Since the beginning of their partnership in 2001, Nigo and Kaws have collaborated on the packaging for Kaws’ “The Kimpsons” exhibit and three seasons of A Bathing Ape. He and Medicom Toy ran OriginalFake, a brand and store in Aoyama, from 2006 to May 2013.[29]

Kaws has also collaborated with Jun Takahashi for the brand Undercover, as a voice-over artist for Michael "Mic" Neumann's Kung Faux, and worked on projects with Burton, Vans, Supreme and DC Shoes. There are Kaws-designed small edition bottles for Dos Equis and Hennessy, rugs for Gallery 1950 and packaging for Kiehl's cosmetics.

In 2004, he collaborated with Undefeated Brand on a billboard project in Los Angeles.[30][31]

In 2008 he collaborated with John Mayer on guitar picks.[32]

For the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards, Kaws redesigned the MTV Moonman trophy in the form of his "Companion" character.,[33] and his 3D model was used to create a 60-foot tall inflatable version.[34] He also redesigned various event materials.[4]

In November/December 2010 he illustrated magazine covers for The New Yorker, Clark Magazine ,[35] i-D and Sneeze Magazine.[36]

In 2008, he created cover art for musicians Towa Tei, Cherie, Clipse (Clipse "Till The Casket Drops") and Kanye West ("808s & Heartbreak")[37] as well as designed Nike Air Force 1 trainers (the Nike 1World project involved 18 total designers).[38]

In 2011, Kaws appeared on the Bravo reality competition series Work of Art: The Next Great Artist where he was a guest judge for the Season 2 finale.[39]

In 2014, Kaws designed the bottle artwork for the scent "Girl" by Comme des Garçons and Pharrell Williams.[40]

In 2016, Kaws collaborated with clothing store Uniqlo to produce a line of T-shirts and accessories that were priced cheaply.[41]

In March 2017, Nike subsidiary Jordan Brand released a capsule collection in collaboration with Kaws – Air Jordan four sneakers customized by Kaws, and a number of apparel pieces.[42]

In April 2017, Kaws collaborated with clothing store Uniqlo and comic strip Peanuts produced by Charles M. Schulz of Peanuts to produce a line of T-shirts, accessories, and plushies that were affordable.[43]

In May 2017, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City released limited supplies of the $200 Kaws Companion action figure, resulting in the MoMA Design Store website crashing due to the unprecedented rush of traffic.[44]

In May 2017, UK auction house Phillips sold a Kaws Seated Companion (2011) bronze sculpture for approximately US$411,000.[45]

In May 2018, Kaws installed two 26-foot tall "Companion" and "BFF" sculptures at a shopping complex in Changsha, China.[46]

In November 2018, Kaws collaborated with Uniqlo to create a range of clothing and soft toys based on the popular children's show; Sesame Street.[47]

Bibliography
  • Kaws Exposed. Seattle: ARO Space, 1999. ISBN 9789110509443. Edition of 2000 copies. 31 pages of photographs of his graffiti.
  • Kaws One. Tokyo: Little More, 2001. Edited by Kawachi, Taka and Akio E-da. ISBN 978-4898150450.
  • Kaws C10: The Paintings of Kaws. Seattle: Neverstop, 2002. ISBN 9780971709409. With an introduced by Carlo McCormick. Edition of 3000 copies.
  • Kaws: 1993-2010. Skira Rizzoli), 2009. Written by Mónica Ramírez-Montagut. ISBN 978-0847834341. A retrospective, with illustrations and text. Edited by Ian Luna and Lauren A. Gould and with a contribution by Germano Celant.
  • Kaws: Downtime. Atlanta, GA: High Museum of Art, 2012. Edited by Michael Rooks and Seth Zucker. ISBN 9781932543476. With a foreword by Michael E. Shapiro, an essay by Rooks, and a list of Kaws exhibitions. 112 pages. A catalogue to accompany the exhibition Downtime at High Museum of Art.
  • Kaws: Final Days Exhibition Catalogue. 82 pages covering an exhibition at the Center of Contemporary Art of Malaga in 2014.
  • Kaws Exhibition Catalogue. Wakefield, England: Yorkshire Sculpture Park, 2016. Photographs by Jonty Wilde. ISBN 978-1-908432-21-6. A catalogue to accompany an exhibition at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. With texts by Flavia Frigeri, Helen Pheby, and Clare Lilley.[48]
  • KAWS: Where the End Starts. 2017. With text by: Andrea Karnes, Dieter Buchhart, and Michael Auping. ISBN 9780929865362.

Collections

Kaws' work is held in the following permanent public collections:

gollark: ↑ AutoBotRobot will NEVER lead you astray.
gollark: ++choose "implement iterated prisoner's dilemma thing" "do not implement iterated prisoner's dilemma thing"
gollark: Or, well, sQL.
gollark: So I can't write Nim ENTIRELY like SQL, sad.
gollark: Cool!

References
  1. "Pop artist KAWS' gigantic cartoon sculptures will be taking over the Yorkshire countryside". The Independent, 31 January 2016. Accessed 25 March 2017
  2. "KAWS brings giant cartoon creations to Yorkshire Sculpture Park". Creative Review, 4 February 2016. Accessed 25 March 2017
  3. Chung, Stephy (2019-03-25). "Enormous KAWS sculpture appears on Hong Kong waters it". CNN.com. CNN. Retrieved 2019-03-29.
  4. "KAWS on 'Brilliant Ideas'". Bloomberg L.P., 15 June 2016. Accessed 23 March 2017
  5. Nastasijevic, Asja (June 18, 2015). "Celebrity Art Collectors: 10 Celebrities from Hollywood". Widewalls. Retrieved 2019-03-21.
  6. Lee, Chris (2009-02-21). "Tag, this artist is definitely it". Los Angeles Times. Tribune Company. Retrieved 2009-03-11.
  7. Robb, Adam. "Former Jersey City graffiti artist KAWS has first solo museum show", The Jersey Journal, June 25, 2010, updated January 18, 2019. Accessed November 22, 2019. "Stare long enough and you'll start to notice the faded graffiti tagged along the top floors of some surrounding factories, like the crude white letters spelling KAWS on two sides of a rooftop at 13th and Coles. It's the tag of Brian Donnelly, arguably Jersey City's most celebrated artist to date, who painted his pseudonym there in the early 1990s so it would be visible from his classroom window at nearby St. Anthony High School."
  8. "Sandra Gering Inc. - KAWS". Sandra Gering. Retrieved 2016-07-22.
  9. Healy, Murray. And "Graffiti Artist Turned Gallery Artist Turned Art Toy Maker, KAWS." Pop. Feb. 2007: 260-265.
  10. Miller, M.H. (2012-11-19). "KAWS Brings His 'Companion' Over for Thanksgiving". Observer. Retrieved 2019-03-21.
  11. Schacter, Rafael (2018). Street to Studio. London: Lund Humphries Publishers. pp. 98–103. ISBN 9781848222366.
  12. Lee, By Chris. "Tag, this artist is definitely it". latimes.com. Retrieved 2019-04-12.
  13. "KAWS Biography". Iconoclastusa.com. Archived from the original on 2008-12-11. Retrieved 2017-03-22.CS1 maint: unfit url (link)
  14. "KAWS biography | Masters & Contemporary". Masterscontemporary.com. 2011-06-10. Retrieved 2019-02-26.
  15. Smart, Jennifer (2016-10-04). "KAWS' Art Has Graced Museums and Consumer Products, and Now He Gets His First Survey". Dallas Observer. Retrieved 2019-04-12.
  16. "Kaws: Down Time". High Museum of Art. Accessed 24 March 2017
  17. "More Gallery - Giswil, Switzerland - Kaws: Giswil". Moregallery.ch. 2013-08-26. Retrieved 2017-03-22.
  18. Bray, Arthur (2014-09-16). "KAWS "Clean Slate" Exhibition @ Harbour City Hong Kong". Hypebeast.com. Retrieved 2017-03-22.
  19. "Openings: KAWS – "Final Days" @ CAC Malaga « Arrested Motion". Arrestedmotion.com. 2014-03-28. Retrieved 2017-03-22.
  20. "On Exhibit | Kaws' Giant "Small Lie" Sculpture At Frieze London | Supertouch". Supertouchart.com. Retrieved 2017-03-22.
  21. [/ "The new KAWS public art in China is off the hook | TheArtGorgeous"] Check |url= value (help). theartgorgeous.com. Retrieved 2018-11-05.
  22. Kaws Auction Record $14.7 Million. Artnews, Annie Armstrong, 1 April 2019. Accessed 12 May 2019
  23. "Bloomberg - Are you a robot?". www.bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2020-03-01.
  24. "I have joined Russ Heath, John Romita, Mike Sekowsky, Tony Abruzzo, and many other comic artists who have been ripped off by "fine artists."". 2019-11-19.Bill Morrison Facebook page
  25. https://www.comicsbeat.com/kaws-made-14-million-from-bill-morrison-art-and-morrison-isnt-happy/
  26. KAWS Painting Sold for Record Breaking HK$116m at Sotheby's NIGO Sale. The Value, 1 April 2019. Accessed 15 June 2020
  27. Smart, Jennifer (2016-10-04). "KAWS' Art Has Graced Museums and Consumer Products, and Now He Gets His First Survey". Dallas Observer. Retrieved 2019-04-15.
  28. "Bounty hunter companion - mono Companion by Kaws, ... | Trampt Library". Trampt.com. Retrieved 2017-03-22.
  29. "KAWS Announces Closure of OriginalFake | HUH". Huhmagazine.co.uk. Retrieved 2017-03-22.
  30. "categorized art collection • KAWS, "Kaws x Undefeated Billboard" (2004): "The..." categorized art collection. Retrieved 2018-05-14.
  31. "Undefeated Billboard Project - The Hangline". The Hangline. 1 March 2011. Archived from the original on 14 May 2018. Retrieved 2018-05-14.
  32. "John Mayer x Kaws Guitar Picks". HYPEBEAST. Retrieved 2018-05-14.
  33. "MTV Awards Will Feature a New Moonman, Just Right for Brooklyn". The New York Times, 8 July 2013. Accessed 23 March 2017
  34. "VMA's KAWS 60-Foot Moonman: How'd They Do That?". MTV News, 25 August 2013. Accessed 23 March 2017
  35. "KAWS x Clark Magazine Issue 45". Hypebeast, 3 November 2010. Accessed 23 March 2017
  36. "KAWS Fronts the 29th Issue of 'SNEEZE' Magazine Dubbed "Get Met It Pays"". Sneeze Magazine, 18 October 2016. Accessed 25 March 2017
  37. "Kanye West "808s & Heartbreak" album cover by KKAWS"". Hypebeast, November 2011
  38. "Nike 1World Air Force 1 by KAWS". Hypebeast, 1 July 2008. Accessed 25 March 2017
  39. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzFLWU2WqS0&list=PL7x8Gh-1C8QFZEH_HqS_ilKjGxt134Bdy&index=10
  40. "Girl by Pharrell Williams". Comme des Garçons. Accessed 23 March 2017
  41. "Kaws x Sesame Street | UNIQLO US". www.uniqlo.com. Retrieved 2018-08-27.
  42. Boykins, Austin (20 March 2017). "Jordan Brand x Kaws Collection Release Date". Hypebeast. Retrieved 22 March 2017.
  43. "Kaws x Peanuts". Uniqlo. Accessed 28 April 2017
  44. Marshall, Cass (2017-05-26). "Why did a $200 toy crash the Museum of Modern Art's website?". Polygon. Retrieved 2019-02-26.
  45. Patos, Robert (2017-05-29). "Rare KAWS Seated Companion $400,000 USD Auction". Hypebeast. Retrieved 2019-02-26.
  46. "US artist KAWS makes permanent mark in China". CNN Style. 2018-05-07. Retrieved 2018-05-17.
  47. "Uniqlo Is Releasing a Second Collection of the Coolest 'Sesame Street' Gear Ever". Fatherly. 2018-10-26. Retrieved 2019-02-27.
  48. "Kaws Exhibition Catalogue" Archived 2016-10-27 at the Wayback Machine. Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Accessed 22 March 2017
  49. "Where the end Starts: 2011: Kaws". High Museum of Art. Accessed 24 March 2017
  50. "Along the Way". Brooklyn Museum. Accessed 17/5/17
  51. "Untitled". Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. Accessed 17/5/17
  52. "New Kaws statue in Campus Martius gains fans and critics". Detroit Free Press. Accessed 23/5/18
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