Kaws in 1998 was already playing hide and seek with galleries, media, fashion, design industry. surreptitiously interspersing his own iconic images onto public display ads. Like Donald Trump he know how how the media functions. NY Arts Magazine and its editor Abraham Lubelski found. Kaws walking the Soho streets of New York with a master key to access advertising panels on bus stop display cases showing Calvin Klein. At home he would merge his own iconic signature graffiti then return the original posters to the street advertising display cases. Kaws was invited by artist and founder of NY Arts Magazine Abraham Lubelski. to prepare a cover design. and presented another illusion and subversion of art, media, and commerce. Kaws was asked to modify a sample version using an existing edition of Interview. Kaws’ work is surreptitious, mixing art media, design, pop culture in public surroundings.
KAWS and his army of cartoon giants land in the UK
KAWS is on at Yorkshire Sculpture Park from February 6 – June 12, 2016
Wakefield, England (CNN)Even if you don’t know the name KAWS, you’ve probably seen his work.
Remember the warped Calvin Klein ads that merged graffiti and fashion? The limited-edition Kanye West “808s & Heartbreak” album cover? The cartoon-esque bottle he created for Girl, Pharrell Williams’ fragrance with Comme des Garcons?
Or maybe it’s his toy-like sculptures — and actual toys — which look like Mickey Mouse dolls with self-esteem issues, and sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars at auction, that have slipped into your psyche?
Born Brian Donnelly, the Brooklyn-based artist began his career in the early 90s, graffiting ads plastered over what he considered to be public places — his work became so popular, advertising agencies started to hire him.
Since then, his work has been displayed at the Museum of Modern Art, in New York; he has collaborated with renowned Japanese artist Takashi Murakami; and sold toys at hip Parisian boutique Colette, all while subverting some of pop’s most familiar faces, from The Smurfs to The Simpsons.
And now he’s brought his brand of street-inspired pop art to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP), a multi-acre outdoor gallery in the north of England.
