Acrylic on canvas

88.9 × 58.4 cm. 35 × 23 in.

Signed in English and dated on the reverse
PROVENANCE
Acquired directly by original private collector from the artist
29 Jun 2017, Sotheby's London Spring Auctions, Lot 142
Acquired directly by present important private Asian collector from the above

A Code of Joy for the World
KAWS' Boundary-breaking Dialogue

“When I was doing graffiti, my whole thought was, ‘I just want to exist.' I want to exist with this visual language in the world… It meant nothing to me to make paintings if I wasn't reaching people.”

――KAWS

When it comes to the most iconic cartoon characters of the new generation of Pop and graffiti art, perhaps the first thing that comes to mind is KAWS' various characters with “X” signs in their eye holes. Tracing the rise of graffiti art, which originated in the United States in 1972, it became a new art expression language that broke the boundaries between high class and street culture. Born in 1974 in New Jersey with his real name Brian Donnelly, KAWS had been deeply influenced by graffiti art. Since his childhood, he has been obsessed with street culture and cartoon visual language, and later, he became a leading figure in the contemporary art trend.

After graduating in 1996 from The School of Visual Arts in New York with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in illustration degree, Donnelly worked for four years as an animator at Disney's Jumbo Pictures. At the same time, he began to carry out a series of street advertisement transformation projects using the name “KAWS”. He draws inspiration from cartoons and pop culture and skillfully integrates his creation into the commercial advertisements of many fashion brands such as CK and Gucci using graffiti. Or he uses characters from The Smurfs, SpongeBob SquarePants, The Simpsons and other classic cartoons as the protagonist and adds his interpretation. KAWS' witty and bold work has quickly accumulated fame for him.

In 2019, his work The Kaws Album featuring The Simpsons was auctioned at more than 100 million HKD. He gives comic characters new charm that evokes the empathy of countless people and establishes his place in the art world. His works are collected by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Brooklyn Museum, the Yuz Museum in Shanghai, NIGO, the godfather of Japanese fashion, Pharrell Williams, a famous American rapper, Jay Chou, and more. Andy Warhol was the pioneer of combining art and commerce, and KAWS can be said as a great practitioner of this concept. He has been invited to collaborate with many brands such as Dior, A Bathing Ape, Uniqlo, and so on, allowing him to capture the eyes and attention of all classes. From authoritative museums to street shops, KAWS' classic characters break the traditional definition of high art and lead graffiti and pop culture to advance. His works inspire the audiences with multiple emotions such as happiness, joy, and self-examination, making art reflect and become the public's common memory and aesthetic value.

To Split and Merge, to Make a New Trend

The work Untitled is a quintessence of KAWS' “Fragmentation Period” that began in 2011. The works of this period are characterized by an animation style similar to celluloid films. The artist transforms and deconstructs his favourite cartoon protagonists with gorgeous colours, bold composition and smooth lines. He displays his unique creative language and imagination using segmentation and re-integration. As Monica Ramirez-Montagut, director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum points out: “KAWS' body of work may well expose the motivation for the estimation of these (cartoon) images. Perhaps, as the title of one of his paintings states, they are ‘gatekeepers' to a new consciousness, one that challenges homogeneity and hegemonic forces.” Untitled is just such work.

KAWS's classical and representative Spongebob Squarepants is the leading role in this work. However, he dares to break the inherent image of this character. The yellow skin turns pink, and the character's facial expression is dramatic. Its cheek swells up due to a large smile, and a cute front tooth can be seen in his red mouth, referring to his distinct identity. The green eyeball contrasts sharply with the light blue pupil, with KAWS' signature “X” in the centre. As a globally recognized symbol in the computer age, “X” embodies the unique trademark of KAWS, with the meaning of “bold challenge and innovation”, and at the same time contains the artist's philosophical thinking: Under the symbol “X”, the expression of the protagonist seems to be in a state between visible and invisible, which is a metaphor for the vague and fleeting boundary between the existence and extinction of cultural symbols. This painting is colourful but not vulgar, full of unique American graffiti culture and reflects the “cool” attitude of the new generation.

The work uses flat painting, clear colour blocks, and defined boundaries to create a unique visual sense of the computer era and echoes KAWS' favourite “super flat” Manga style in Japanese culture. His works show his excellent control of painting media and witness the spark stirred by the intimate integration of the representative Pop art styles of east and west. In the age of the Internet and globalization, this is the international art language that can be interpreted and appreciated by viewers of all nationalities.

Childlike Innocence Leads the Time

Compared with KAWS' previous creations, which directly refer to the overall image of the cartoon characters themselves, only a part of SpongeBob Squarepants is presented here. This kind of representation is just like the cartoon's close-up storyboard, which can accurately highlight the protagonist's whole emotion and give the audience infinite space for imagination and interaction. People can not help but take the initiative to enter the painting and can boldly expand the picture with the wings of imagination. Moreover, KAWS has boldly subverted this well-known IP's inherent image with a new high contrast colour scheme. The identity information of the protagonist, such as gender, age, species and origin, is hidden by this close-up and different colour collocation. Only exaggerated partial facial expressions show its cheerful mood. This particular “anonymity” and “reinvention” is in the spirit of graffiti, where the protagonist is no one, but at the same time, can be everyone.

Untitled is a smile dedicated to the public, with its pleasant, fantastic, gorgeous characteristics to attract attention and light up the viewers' hearts. KAWS shows the world that art has more than a serious side with his unique iconic painting style. Simple and childlike, vibrant and colourful fun Pop art represents the most fashionable artistic appeal, which can be freely deconstructed and reproduced. Like street graffiti and cartoons, KAWS's art equally gives everyone the most interactive pure fun through creative dialogue. Untitled represents a generation's bold dissection and redefinition of art and letting the field of art give birth to a flower that belongs to this age.

Price estimate:
HKD: 1,000,000 - 1,500,000
USD: 127,400 - 191,100

Auction Result:
HKD: --