KAWS - 20th Century & Contemporary Art & Design Evening Sale Hong Kong Saturday, May 26, 2018 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Galerie Perrotin, Paris
    Private Collection
    Phillips, New York, 6 March 2014, Lot 3
    Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

  • Catalogue Essay

    KAWS reimagines one of the most absorbing personalities in contemporary culture to create Untitled featuring KAWSBOB. Rendered exclusively in enthralling matte red tones, Untitled exemplifies the artist’s position within the historical continuum that began with Pop Art, straddling the line between fine art and commerce. Stripped of his typically cheery yellow hue, the indefatigable character who is known for his hyperactivity, eagerness to please and dogged optimism becomes the subject of archetypical KAWS interventions to reflect the artist’s signature crossed-out eyes and abstraction. Though KAWSBOB retains the highly expressive bulging eyes, protruding nose and two buck teeth indexical to the adored cartoon character, the portrait is zoomed in, bluntly cropped and strangely removed from the undersea context of the popular children’s television series.

    Having grown from the culture of downtown Manhattan in the 1990s, KAWS’s cartoonish style is rooted in the artist’s early career who would mediate public advertisements with his own seamlessly brushstroke-free additions. These interventionist artworks were so skilfully executed that it was difficult to distinguish the artist’s work from the original advertisement, a perfectionist mentality still evident in KAWS’s work today. In response to conventional distinctions between high versus low art, KAWS explains, “to me they involve the same thought process, so it’s funny that when I work big in bronze, it’s called a sculpture, but something I do that’s small and plastic is called a toy.” (KAWS quoted in Carlo McCormick, "From the Streets to TV to Fine Art Galleries, KAWS Is Everywhere," Paper, November 4, 2013) Though his current work channels the bright colours, commercialist attitudes, and refined graphic languages of Pop Artists Claes Oldenburg, Tom Wesselmann, and more recently, Takashi Murakami, KAWS has married the legacy of Pop Art with his own legendary re-appropriation of contemporary culture icons, an aesthetic that has amassed widespread appeal from viewers worldwide.

  • Artist Biography

    KAWS

    American • 1974

    To understand the work of KAWS is to understand his roots in the skateboard and graffiti crews of New York City. Brian Donnelly chose KAWS as his moniker to tag city streets beginning in the 1990s, and quickly became a celebrated standout in the scene. Having swapped spray paint for explorations in fine art spanning sculpture, painting and collage, KAWS has maintained a fascination with classic cartoons, including Garfield, SpongeBob SquarePants and The Simpsons, and reconfigured familiar subjects into a world of fantasy. 

    Perhaps he is most known for his larger-than-life fiberglass sculptures that supplant the body of Mickey Mouse onto KAWS' own imagined creatures, often with 'x'-ed out eyes or ultra-animated features. However, KAWS also works frequently in neon and vivid paint, adding animation and depth to contemporary paintings filled with approachable imagination. There is mass appeal to KAWS, who exhibits globally and most frequently in Asia, Europe and the United States.  

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Property of an Important American Collector

42

Untitled

2009
signed and dated 'KAWS 09' on the reverse
acrylic on canvas
182.9 x 182.9 cm. (72 x 72 in.)
Painted in 2009.

Estimate
HK$2,000,000 - 3,000,000 
€215,000-323,000
$256,000-385,000

Sold for HK$5,260,000

Contact Specialist
Jonathan Crockett
Deputy Chairman, Asia and Head of 20th Century & Contemporary Art, Asia
+852 2318 2023

Isaure de Viel Castel
Head of Department
+852 2318 2011

Sandy Ma
Head of Sale
+852 2318 2025

20th Century & Contemporary Art & Design Evening Sale

Hong Kong Auction 27 May 2018