KAWS' 'COMPANION' x Mary Boone Gallery
Some pop culture for you guys! KAWS, the Brooklyn-based artist, responsible for modifying the aesthetics of the 2013 MTV VMA Moonman, is having his art featured in an exhibit at the Mary Boon Gallery on W 24th street in NYC. You may or may not know that I am an absolute fan of KAWS. I’ve always gravitated toward his artwork–so much so that I have a piece of it tatted on my forearm. With works carving a deep niche into modern Pop art, there's no surprise that I had to see it when I heard that some of it was in town. Here’s the official press release:
KAWS’s signature COMPANION figure appears in two new sculptures fabricated in wood
– each over eighteen feet high – that rise to the ceiling of the soaring skylit space. In
ALONG THE WAY, a pair of the figures, heads lowered and one arm on each other’s
back, embrace in a pose of gentle solace. The other work, AT THIS TIME, presents
Companion standing alone with head arched back and hands covering the eyes. The
posture at once conveys a reluctance to face the world and a withdrawal from what has
already been witnessed.
Three eight-foot tondo paintings that complete the exhibition reveal KAWS’s distinctive
mode of advancing the bold colors and streamlined iconography of Pop art. While the
dynamic shapes suggest close-ups of the plump hands, X’d eyes, and crossbone ears of
the figures, the close cropping of the images allows the paintings to vacillate between
figuration and abstraction.
KAWS was born in 1974 in Jersey City, New Jersey, and is based in Brooklyn, New York
City. Since receiving his BFA from Manhattan’s School of Visual Arts in 1996, he has
continued to refine his transformations of icons of popular culture into characters that
have in their own right become instantly recognizable.
Indeed he has. Though you won’t spend hours gazing in puzzlement, there is something to be gained from this experience that pictures just don’t capture. As an advocate for the United States of Pop Culture, I urge those in New York City to witness THE urban artist of our time. You have until the 21st of December. Check out pics from my field trip to the gallery:
Kaws' "AT THIS TIME" at the Mary Boone Gallery in New York City
Kaws' "ALONG THE WAY" at Mary Boon Gallery in NYC
Kaws' "TONDO" paintings at Mary Boon Gallery in NYC
