A number of years in the past, Juxtapoz was famous as an unserious, uncritical journal due to our assist for the work of KAWS. It wasn’t complimentary I would add though I assume in some methods I discovered it illuminating. This was the the time of his 2021 exhibition on the Brooklyn Museum, and though we can’t be aware the web publication who made that brazen connection and maybe hadn’t learn our journal, it was additionally an oddly vicious evaluate of KAWS profession. Not solely did I not agree that we have been in some way unserious for following the profession of the graffiti artist turned pop icon, I additionally felt the very nature of his ascension from stardom on this style was fascinating and infrequently acheived. Like Banksy, critics battle with find out how to evaluate or place KAWS in a canon; they’re too well-liked? Too eagerly awaited by a non-art viewers? Whether or not the work speaks to you or not is irrelevant on this case, there’s a sure better affect right here that’s value an understanding. A conversatino. That’s what we attempt to do.
Some reveals simply trigger a response. And, unquestionably, a present that includes KAWS in dialog with Warhol would actually generate a dialog, an arguement, a debate, a little bit of backlash and, then, there could be quite a lot of consideration and buzz. Possibly I am naive, however I used to be suprised at a number of the venomous nature to the commentary, as evidently KAWS’ place in each the up to date artwork and well-liked cultural world is in some way nonetheless a topic of confused dissertations of a decline in aesthetics. His place as a bridge is fascinating to me, in some way who brings tradition to artwork and artwork to pop-culture. He’s a ubiquitous star of the second, and the place Warhol set the stage for an examination of pop and market ubiquitity, KAWS is an infiltration of ubiquity. He interferes with Pop. He collects iconography, locations himself inside it. After we started his advertisting takeovers within the Nineteen Nineties, drawing his iconic characters atop adverts in bus shelters which to me are nonetheless a few of his best works, he understood the thought of infiltration into the collective reminiscence. Warhol knew this, too.
I have not had an opportunity to see this present new present, KAWS + Warhol, on view at The Warhol in Pittsburgh via January 25, 2025, however I perceive the conflicted artwork press and the proper metaphoric curation of each artists collectively, KAWS responding to Warhol’s legacy. And thru the spectacle of each their careers, there’s something darkish lurking right here, this type of Pop as POP, our need to eat what the museum notes is “signature shiny colours and popular culture references whereas additionally presenting the lurid spectacle of demise.” In presenting ubiquitity, of respiration life into our tradition of omnipresent forces, there is one thing lurid about this pairing as a result of it speaks to all of our wishes within the pop sphere. Warhol’s picture of the electrical chair in the identical context as KAWS work of a lifeless cookie monster within the arms of his iconic COMPANION character reveals places homicide within the realm of an virtually blind acceptance. On this sense, this present endures. —Evan Pricco
