Provenance
Private Collection, New York (acquired directly from the artist)
Acquired from the above by the present owner
Literature
Brian Donnelly, et. al., KAWS: 1993-2010, New York, 2010, p. 204 (illustrated, p. 205; dated 2005)
Catalogue Essay
Painted in 2004, KAWS’s playfully irreverent UNTITLED (FATAL GROUP) is exemplary of the artist’s unique visual lexicon that deconstructs the division between popular culture and fine art. Composed on an immersive scale akin to the grand tradition of history or myth painting, this enigmatic work evinces KAWS at his most technically accomplished and conceptually resolute. Painted with such perfected clarity that there is no trace of the artist’s hand, the careful balance of block colors and monotone shadows harnesses an emotive nostalgia that supports KAWS’s longstanding project of appropriating children’s cartoon characters. The present work refigures the cast of the animated series The Fat Albert Show with their heads composed in the artist’s trademark cross-eyed skulls. Reading like a movie poster without text, this image provides an entrancing scene that challenges the artifice of familiar mass media images and a saturated contemporary visual culture.

With UNTITLED (FATAL GROUP), KAWS alludes to the historic genre of the group portrait that was popularized in 16th and 17th century Europe, but, rather than depicting nobility, he selects a familiar image from children’s entertainment. Running from 1972 to 1985, The Fat Albert Show was a popular animated television show for children. Inspired by cartoon imagery, KAWS essentially inserts himself into a long tradition of appropriation within a fine art context: from Marcel Duchamp’s infamous “R. Mutt” signature on his 1917 rendition of Fountain, through to Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup cans and the photographic appropriation of The Pictures Generation. Yet, rather than re-contextualizing faithful copies of an original, KAWS interprets the Fat Albert cast in his own, highly distinct visual language that echoes Michael Auping’s observation that “KAWS is not just referring to pop culture, he is making it” (Michael Auping, “America’s Cartoon Mind”, KAWS: WHERE THE END STARTS, exh. cat., Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, 2016, p. 63).

KAWS, who like Warhol began his career as an illustrator, takes appropriation and reworks it into a mutable or evolutionary form of art. This impulse stems from his early career as a graffiti artist when he would intervene on billboards, fashion ads and photo booth advertisements, modifying photographic images so skillfully that his brushstroke-free additions would appear as if they were part of the original imagery. This seamless intrusion of his own aesthetic continues in the present work, where the distinction between original source and the artist’s additions are completely dissolved in a unified surface. KAWS has remarked that he "…wanted to work within the language of the ad, to form a dialogue" (KAWS, quoted in KAWS: WHERE THE END STARTS, exh. cat., Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, 2016, p. 27). As in his earlier graffiti days, he has painted X’s into the eyes of these figures, giving them an empty appearance but also marking them with the moniker of his Generation X.

KAWS’s frequent crossover to cartoons positions him as the most recent epitome within a lineage of American artists engaging with graphic art and cartoon illustrations. Cartoons served as an important platform for artists such as Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Ad Reinhardt, and Philip Guston to hone their draftsmanship and compositional skills, but also served as a source of inspiration for Pop artists such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein to launch their careers. This decade-long development, as poet Robert Duncan has suggested, is “the evolution of the Jungian cartoon mind… The cartoon is our [Americans’] subconsciousness acted out in the public” (Rubert Duncan, quoted in Michael Auping, “America’s Cartoon Mind”, KAWS: WHERE THE END STARTS, exh. cat., Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, 2016, p. 65).

KAWS seems to echo this sentiment, choosing cartoons because they inherently act out human emotions, distilled and often simplified to their partly abstracted forms and tropes. As Michael Auping observed of KAWS’s paintings: “this is existentialism absorbed in a cartoon world” (Michael Auping, “America’s Cartoon Mind”, KAWS: WHERE THE END STARTS, exh. cat., Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, 2016, p. 68). This description appears particularly apt when considering the double-entendre of the work’s parenthetical title “FATAL GROUP”, which strongly opposes the optimism and moralizing didacticism of the Fat Albert series. Here, KAWS strikes a profound discord between the jubilant poses and saccharine composition of the TV show’s characters and the dark allusions to death and danger. He offers not only a recognition of mortality within an otherwise timeless realm of fantasy, but the realization that not all is what it seems, and that the real world lying behind this cute cartoon curtain is far less utopian, far less easily redeemed by quick moral lessons. Fostering a unique sense of the uncanny, in UNTITLED (FATAL GROUP) KAWS presents the ultimate cultural hybrid and a historic addition to the canon of visual appropriation.
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.
View More Works

Ο◆2

KAWS

UNTITLED (FATAL GROUP)

signed and dated "KAWS..04" on the reverse
acrylic on canvas
68 1/8 x 68 1/8 in. (173 x 173 cm.)
Painted in 2004.

Estimate
$700,000 - 900,000

Sold for $2,716,500

Contact Specialist
Amanda Lo Iacono
Head of Evening Sale
New York
+1 212 940 1278
aloiacono@phillips.com

20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale

New York Auction 15 November 2018

1
Christina Quarles
Pull on Thru Tha Nite
Estimate $30,000 - 50,000
Sold for $225,000
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2
KAWS
UNTITLED (FATAL GROUP)
Estimate $700,000 - 900,000
Sold for $2,716,500
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3
George Condo
Dreaming Nude
Estimate $600,000 - 800,000
Sold for $1,095,000
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4
Joan Miró
Femme dans la nuit
Estimate $12,000,000 - 18,000,000
Sold for $22,590,000
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5
Alexander Calder
Conique noir
Estimate $1,200,000 - 1,800,000
Sold for $1,335,000
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6
Alberto Burri
Grande legno e rosso
Estimate $10,000,000 - 15,000,000
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7
Robert Motherwell
Open No. 153: In Scarlet with White Line
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $2,295,000
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8
Bruce Nauman
Double Slap in the Face
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $435,000
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9
Bruce Nauman
Masturbating Man
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $2,757,500
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10
Jean Dubuffet
Le malentendu
Estimate $1,200,000 - 1,800,000
Sold for $1,250,000
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11
Jean Dubuffet
Mademoiselle mine orange
Estimate $1,800,000 - 2,500,000
Sold for $1,755,000
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12
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Untitled
Estimate $4,000,000 - 6,000,000
Sold for $4,575,000
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13
Andy Warhol
Gun
Estimate $7,000,000 - 10,000,000
Sold for $9,540,000
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14
Kerry James Marshall
Terra Incognita
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $2,775,000
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15
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Untitled
Estimate $9,000,000 - 12,000,000
Sold for $9,000,000
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16
Gerhard Richter
Abstraktes Bild (714-1)
Estimate $1,800,000 - 2,500,000
Sold for $2,295,000
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17
Albert Oehlen
Untitled
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $1,515,000
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18
Christopher Wool
Untitled
Estimate $4,000,000 - 6,000,000
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19
Amy Sillman
U
Estimate $300,000 - 400,000
Sold for $855,000
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20
Sean Scully
Landline Red Veined
Estimate $900,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $1,515,000
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21
Ed Clark
The Dome
Estimate $120,000 - 180,000
Sold for $125,000
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22
Mark Rothko
Black Blue Painting
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $4,215,000
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23
Jackson Pollock
Number 16
Estimate On Request
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24
Henri Laurens
La Lune
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $2,175,000
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25
Pierre Bonnard
Place Clichy ou les deux élégantes
Estimate $600,000 - 800,000
Sold for $807,000
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26
Rembrandt Bugatti
Lion et lionne de Nubie
Estimate $900,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $1,095,000
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27
KAWS
CLEAN SLATE
Estimate $900,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $1,995,000
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28
David Hockney
Ron Kitaj Reading
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
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29
This lot is no longer available.
30
Jonas Wood
Michael and Leslie
Estimate $450,000 - 550,000
Sold for $580,500
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31
Giorgio Morandi
Natura morta
Estimate $600,000 - 800,000
Sold for $1,935,000
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32
Wayne Thiebaud
Food Bowls
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $1,635,000
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33
Donald Judd
Untitled
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $900,000
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34
Carmen Herrera
Blanco y Verde
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $2,655,000
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35
Dan Flavin
untitled (to Philip Johnson)
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
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36
David Hammons
African American Flag
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $1,657,500
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37
Kerry James Marshall
We Mourn Our Loss #1
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
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38
This lot is no longer available.
39
This lot is no longer available.
40
Marlene Dumas
Cultural Exchange (Mummie wants to go home)
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $975,000
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41
Karin Mamma Andersson
The Blank Memories Always Open From the South
Estimate $250,000 - 350,000
Sold for $162,500
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20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale

New York Auction 15 November 2018

Create your first list.

Provenance

Literature

Catalogue Essay

Artist Biography

KAWS

Ο◆2

KAWS

UNTITLED (FATAL GROUP)

20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale

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