Who is KAWS?

Have you heard of Kaws? Cover of New York Magazine, posted in Times Square, fea­tured on CBS Sunday Morning, glob­ally col­lected, sub­vert­ing amer­i­can pop-icons KAWS…

Kaws, known orig­i­nally as Brian Donnelly from Jersey City, New Jersey, began his career as a graf­fiti artist. He tagged first in Jersey and, upon mov­ing to New York where he would attend art school in the 1990’s, started sub­vert­ing imagery on adver­tise­ments and bill­boards. As he pro­gressed he focused on cer­tain areas and out­lets. He became par­tial to bus shel­ters and phone booth adver­tise­ments. Kaws said of this “I started get­ting into bomb­ing on a more seri­ous level, try­ing to cover larger areas of Jersey and Manhattan, espe­cially Soho.” At first his altered imagery endured, last­ing often many months but as the now famous x-ed out eyes of Kaws’ began to gain noto­ri­ety the pub­lic work became swiftly sought after.

Kaws designed and pro­duced a line of lim­ited edi­tion toys in the late 90’s that became an instant global smash amongst the art toy-collecting com­mu­nity, par­tic­u­larly in Japan where the genre is deeply respected and incred­i­bly popular.

Kaws has col­lab­o­rated with Original fake, Medicom toy, Nigo for A Bathing Ape, Jun “Jonio” Takahashi for Undercover, Burton snow­boards, Nike, Vans, and now Comme des Garçons.

Kaws is now known for re-creating iconic images such as the Smurfs, the Simpsons (titled, the Kimpsons), Mickey Mouse, the Michelin Man and recently designed a cover for the Kanye West 808s & Heartbreak album that gar­nered a lot of buzz.

Through all of his projects, KAWS has suc­cess­fully blurred the line between fine art and mass-produced mer­chan­dise. He uses his prod­ucts to allow his imagery to infil­trate a larger audi­ence than that of the fine art world. The artist is cur­rently an active mem­ber in both the com­mer­cial and fine art communities.

Solo exhi­bi­tions include OriginalFake at the Bape Gallery in Tokyo (2003) where his sculp­ture “Wonderful World” sold for $400,000.

KAWS has been peri­od­i­cally show­ing both paint­ings and prod­ucts at Colette in Paris since 1999.

His work is included in the trav­el­ing exhi­bi­tion Beautiful Losers, which started at the Cincinnati Contemporary Art Center and will be trav­el­ing through 2009 through­out the US and Europe.

KAWS has become an impor­tant fig­ure in the move­ment of under­ground graf­fiti cul­ture into the main­stream of gallery art.

Leah Spurrier. HighStreet