Image via Complex Original
kawslead
Tomorrow Atlanta's High Museum of Art premieres a multi-site exhibition of work by KAWS. It features a 22-foot-high site-specific mural in the Margaretta Taylor Lobby of the Museum's Wieland Pavilion, as well as a 24-foot-long triptych hung in the Robinson Atrium. There will also be three new major works from KAWS, a grid of 27 round paintings, toys, and a collaboration with British photorapher David Sims.
KAWS’ Companion Passing Through (2010) sculpture was installed on November 18, 2011 in advance of the main exhibition opening on February 18. KAWS: DOWN TIME has been organized by the High’s Wieland Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Michael Rooks. It will be exhibited at the High Museum of Art from February 18, 2012 until May 20, 2012.
Herewith, a preview of tomorrow's show in our A Curatorial Walkthrough of KAWS: DOWN TIME.
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Companion Passing Through, 2010
Fiberglass, metal structure, and paint
Photo by Mike Jensen
kawsfiveyear
(FIVE YEARS LATER) COMPANION, 2004
Vinyl
Courtesy of the artist
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(ORIGINALFAKE) COMPANION, 2006
Vinyl
Courtesy of the artist
chum
CHUM (Black), 2010
Fiberglass and paint
Courtesy of the artist
CHUM is part of KAWS’s cast of characters created in response to cartoons and advertising figures from popular culture. He is a reference to the Michelin tire company’s mascot Bibendum, known as “The Michelin Man,” whose body is composed of stacked automobile tires. CHUM stands confidently, with hands on hips, while his crossed-out eyes suggest that he possesses an altered state of awareness that allows him access to another dimension of reality apart from the visible world. CHUM was created after a smaller version, which was produced in multiple as an edition by KAWS in 2002. CHUM first appeared in paintings in 1999 and was the cover image for EXPOSED, the first book published on KAWS, which featured his street interventions from the 1990s.
companion
COMPANION, 1999
Vinyl
Courtesy of the artist
vader
KAWS DARTH VADER-ORIGINALFAKE, 2007
Vinyl, plastic, cloth
Courtesy of the artist
downtime
DOWN TIME, 2011
Acrylic on canvas
Purchase through funds provided by patrons of the Third Annual Collectors Evening, 2012
The title DOWN TIME suggests leisure time spent away from the toils of everyday life. Here it might also suggest a word play that refers to the gravitational downward pull of the painting’s imagery. KAWSBOB’s face is shown in extreme close-up; barely discernable through the disorderly tumbling of rectangular forms, his eyes are recognizable by the colorful Xs, while his teeth become part of the geometric abstraction of forms in the lower portion of the painting. KAWS includes an allusion to the artist H. C. Westermann’s character of an old sea captain—shown in yellow on the right—as the skipper of a ghost ship that gives this painting a dark aura.
glassmile
GLASS SMILE, 2010
Acrylic on canvas
Overall: 120 x 84in. (304.8 x 213.4cm)
Courtesy of the artist
goneandbeyond
GONE AND BEYOND, 2012
Acrylic on canvas
Courtesy of the artist
GONE AND BEYOND is a single work consisting of twenty-seven canvases, each forty inches in diameter. Together the paintings suggest a cinematic montage of images that depict critical moments of action or scenes of extreme emotion shown in close-up, as if framed by a keyhole or the portal of an ocean liner. The grid of round canvases is also a sly nod to the great forerunners of American Pop art, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol, who incorporated the Benday dot pattern of the printing process used to create pulp comic books of the 1950s and 1960s into their art.
pinocchio
PINNOCHIO, 2010
KAWS PINOCCHIO & JIMINY-CRICKET-ORIGINALFAKE, 2010
Vinyl
Courtesy of the artist
silentcity2
SILENT CITY, 2011
Acrylic on canvas, three panels
96 x 120 inches each
Courtesy of Private Collection and Honor Fraser Gallery
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DOWN TIME ,GONE AND BEYOND, and GLASS SMILE installation.
Courtesy of The High Museum of Art
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GONE AND BEYOND and GLASS SMILE installation.
Courtesy of The High Museum of Art
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DOWN TIME and GONE AND BEYOND installation.
Courtesy of The High Museum of Art
kawswedge
KAWS installation.
Courtesy of The High Museum of Art
At the center of KAWS’s work is an extremely disciplined practice of drawing combined with a highly sophisticated sense of design. The result is technical mastery that bears seemingly limitless creativity. This selection of drawings, along with KAWS’s celebrated collaboration with the fashion photographer David Sims, reveals the artist’s graphic skill and provides a window onto his studio practice, where ideas first come to life on paper. From one drawing to the next, we are invited to watch the development of themes and subjects in his work, while his collaborative work with Sims, located on the opposite wall, demonstrates KAWS’s ability to co-opt, complement, and challenge existing imagery in a manner that mimics the seductive, subliminal, and omnipresent nature of advertising imagery. Also on view is a selection of KAWS’s editioned toys, including three variations on the character COMPANION, the monumental version of which is on view on the Museum’s Sifly Piazza.