While the toys of Kaws began attracting a broad public audience two decades ago, his paintings and sculptures have now become highly valued within the art world. While Kaws, the alias of Brooklyn-based artist Brian Donnelly, has essentially retained the shorts, large shoes and gloves of the anthropomorphic cartoon character Micky Mouse in the lobby of the museum, the transmutation of the head, abstracted face, modified duplication of the pop icon, sophisticated materiality, refractive surface and visceral connotations cunningly encapsulate elements from diverse art movements, including pop art and appropriation. Impeccably fabricated in wood, the two figures paired here are derived from Kaws’s character Companion, the artist’s first, limited-edition vinyl figurine that was produced in 1999 by the Japanese street wear and cult toy company Bounty Hunter. KAWS: Along the Way is on view at the Brooklyn Museum from June 10–December 6, 2015.Upon entering the Brooklyn Museum to view Kaws: What Party, the visitor is confronted by a colossal and strikingly iconic sculpture titled Along the Way (2013). “Are they shy? Are they ashamed?…There is something a little ominous about them,” Tsai said–perhaps because KAWS creates a subtle cognitive dissonance by endowing these eternally cheerful cartoon icons with dark human emotions. “They are so endearing, if 18-foot figures can be endearing,” Eugenie Tsai, the museum’s managing curator of contemporary art, told The Wall Street Journal. But they also look a little bummed out, with heads bowed, X’s for eyes, and heads like stylized skulls and crossbones. In this latest iteration, Companion is made from milled wooden planks and weighs in at six tons, lending a literal gravity to what’s until now been a more lighthearted 3-D cartoon. As Companion has become bigger and more serious as a character, so has KAWS as an artist.
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To create Along the Way, the Williamsburg-based artist spent two years working with a foundry in the Netherlands, figuring out how to best enlarge the character.
Inspired by Mickey Mouse, the chameleonic Companion first appeared in Japan in 1999 as an action figure, and has since been made into a balloon for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade a Moonman trophy for the MTV Music Video Awards and a Boba Fett toy. The two sculptures in Along the Way, the first KAWS pieces to be acquired by the Brooklyn Museum , are large-scale renditions of “Companion,” a recurring character in the artist’s work. KAWS, who was born Brian Donnelly in Jersey City and graduated from the School of Visual Arts in 1996, made a name for himself as a Pop artist after a lifelong graffiti habit and stints as an animator for Disney, past lives that influence his contemporary style. On June 10th, two 18-foot-tall wooden figures, resembling Mickey Mouses in existential despair, will take up residence in the museum’s lobby, alongside two graffiti-influenced paintings, in an exhibit called Along the Way. Fans include Pharrell Williams, a big-time collector of what he calls “urban vinyl” (art-speak for “fancy toys for grownups”), and, now, the Brooklyn Museum. Wood,(Photo: Adam Reich, courtesy of Mary Boone Gallery, New York)īrooklyn-based former street artist KAWS is best known for work that blurs the line between fine art sculpture and really expensive collectible toys.
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