KAWS
Brian Donnelly (* 1974 ), known by his stage name KAWS , is an American pop art artist and designer.
job
Donnelly first made a name for himself as a graffiti artist under his pseudonym KAWS in the 1990s by painting over advertisements with his own motifs and reinterpreting them ironically, initially in his hometown of New Jersey, then mainly in New York and cities like Tokyo and Paris and Berlin.
The "companion" face with crossed eyes, which he often used and designed by him, formed a starting point for his various designer toys , which were published as editions under the label "OriginalFake", and became a recurring motif in his later paintings, in which he was often comic - Characters like Sponge Bob , the Simpsons or the Peanuts caricatured and reinterpreted through his own symbolism. KAWS uses such quotations more cautiously in his more recent works, often painting his abstract comic-like and fragmented scenes on shaped canvas in figural form or circular tondos. Some of his sculptures exhibited in public spaces are up to 10 meters high.
In his numerous collaborations with well-known lifestyle brands and pop icons, he designed, among other things, the moon man of the MTV Video Music Awards 2013 , shoes for Nike , fashion, skateboards and record covers, for example for Kanye West .
KAWS 'works have been shown internationally in galleries, museums and open-air exhibitions and fetch steadily increasing prices of up to several hundred thousand US dollars in auctions.
The artist lives and works in New York .
Exhibitions (selection)
- 2020 "Companionship in the Age of Loneliness", National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
- 2017 "Where The End Starts", Yuz Museum, Shanghai, China
- 2016 Yorkshire Sculpture Park , West Yorkshire, UK
- 2015 "Along The Way", Brooklyn Museum , Brooklyn , New York
- 2015 "ArtZuid 2015", Amsterdam, Netherlands
- 2014 "Clean Slate", Harbor City, Hong Kong
- 2013 "Ups and Downs", The Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, USA
- 2012 "Downtime", High Museum of Art , Atlanta, USA
- 2011 Focus: KAWS, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth , Fort Worth, USA
literature
- Fernando Francés, Mónica Ramírez-Montagut: Final Days (2014) Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Málaga ISBN 978-8494216916 (exhibition catalog).
- Michael Rooks, Seth Zucker: KAWS: Downtime. (2012) ISBN 9781932543476 Catalog on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, USA.
- Mónica Ramírez-Montagut: KAWS: 1993-2010 Skira Rizzoli (2009) ISBN 978-0847834341 .
Web links
proof
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | KAWS |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Donnelly, Brian (real name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American pop art artist and designer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1974 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Jersey City |