Tag Archives: Kaws

KAWS: TIME OFF at Skarstedt Paris

March 18, 2023 butterfly

American artist KAWS is currently exhibiting at Skarstedt Gallery in Paris. TIME OFF marks the culmination of a series of paintings started in 2020, at the height of the confinement, and features a new large scale bronze sculpture.

The works on view in TIME OFF are introspective and reflect on the transient nature of time. In each painting, KAWS’s signature Michelin’s man character CHUM appears before the viewer with complex configurations of bright bands of paint acting as an additional barrier between us and the figure, with the notion of time feeling constricting or isolating.

This series depict KAWS’s interpretation on personal confinement and the passing of time and the uncertainty of events.

As KAWS continues to delve into these themes, the paintings in this series become progressively more elaborate and, at times, chaotic, which draw the parallel on the events we are experiencing.

In some works the bars break free of their architecturally rendered confines and shoot out in all directions across the canvas, causing CHUM to duck down or become shrouded by them, respectively. Other paintings reflects the uncertainty of how to navigate the space we inhabit.

Despite the persistence of doubt in these works, KAWS leaves his viewers with a palpable optimism for the future with the use of bright and vivid colours. Not all hope is lost. Despite confusing and uncertain times, the aim is to seek artistic beauty and make the most of what is around you.

Until 22 April 2023, Skarstedt Gallery, 2 Avenue Matignon, 75008 Paris

CovidArt

Covid’Art: More colouring packs from your favourite artists

May 3, 2020 butterfly

We have gathered additional colouring pages from your favourite artists to let your creativity loose during these uncertain times. You can also check our previous selection here.

Illegal painting from Toulouse presents 2 volumes of colouring pages (link) featuring 62 artists including Miss Van, Mademoiselle Kat, Tilt and more

Romero Britto is sharing a free colouring book (link)

Japan Society – Yoshitomo Nara (link)

Sea Walls: Artists for Oceans / ThePangaseed Foundation offers 5 volumes of colouring books (link) to help save our seas
Illustration below by Mateus Bailon

Library Street Collective – We All Rise ebook (link)
with 100% of proceeds to benefit Living Arts Detroit, a non-profit with the goal of igniting creativity in the lives of Detroit youth through the performing, visual and media arts.

Participating artists include: Virgil Abloh, Nina Chanel Abney, Doug Aitken, Daniel Arsham, McArthur Binion, Amoako Boafo, Nick Cave, Dabls, Torkwase Dyson, Conrad Egyir, Shepard Fairey, Sam Friedman, Beverly Fishman, FriendsWithYou, Haroshi, Carole Harris, KAWS, Eddie Martinez, Tiff Massey, Charles McGee, Allie McGhee, Simphiwe Ndzube, Jordan Nickel, Jose Parla, Jason REVOK, Julia Wachtel, Austyn Weiner, Wendy White, and Tyrrell Winston.

Tara Mc Pherson is offering 6 colouring pages with her iconic characters (link)

Thank you to all the artists for their generosity !! We love you

London

London: Kaws – Black Out at Skarstedt

October 3, 2019 butterfly

KAWS just opened a new solo exhibition called ‘BLACK OUT’ at Skarstedt in London. Featuring a series of ten new abstract paintings and two new sculptures. BLACKOUT coincides with KAWS: COMPANIONSHIP IN THE AGE OF LONELINESS at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, which follows a further solo presentation, ALONE AGAIN, at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. This exhibition continues to further explore the emotional content of the artist’s work.

While retaining his colourful acrylic palette, the abstract compositions within his paintings contain figurative elements that suggest traps, pathways, bridges and boundaries. This imagery alludes to the artist’s underlying concern about the divisions within and across societies. He reminds us that despite living in a time of connectivity and constant communication we are separated by the toxic nature of current political and public discourse that also permeates social media.

With the sculptures KAWS uses two of his characters to convey opposing human attitudes.

In SHARE, the Companion is secure and looks outward, holding but not attached to the toy in its hand. KAWS’ figures, as ever, poignantly reveal to us the human condition in the contemporary world and also offer an alternative way of being.

In the sculpture TAKE, the BFF holds a child Companion defensively, pulling it back in a gesture of mistrust as if to prevent someone else from touching it; the child cowed looks to the ground, the fear is transferred.

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KAWS – BLACK OUT
Skarstedt

Until 9 November 2019

Shows

Preview: Kaws @ Yorkshire Sculpture Park

January 31, 2016 butterfly

https://vimeo.com/153210281

The Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP), the largest of its kind in Europe, presents the first UK museum exhibition by Brooklyn-based artist KAWS from Feb 6th to June 2016.

The exhibition, in the expansive Longside Gallery and open air, features over 20 works: commanding sculptures in bronze, fibreglass, aluminium and wood alongside large, bright canvases immaculately rendered in acrylic paint.

The artist has made a series of five paintings especially for the exhibition. Each measuring 112 x 92 inches, they will span the largest wall of the spacious gallery, creating a swathe of brilliant colour and complex energy. Constructed with painstaking attention to detail, the abstracted forms overlay and interweave, forming shadows and deepening space to reveal a slinking, enigmatic figure.

Kaws 01 Kaws 03 Kaws 02

The Park’s historically designed landscape becomes home to a series of monumental and imposing sculptures, including a new six-metre-tall work, which take KAWS’s idiosyncratic form of almost-recognisable characters in the process of growing up.

Kaws 04

Kaws 05

Pictures by @kaws and @sovietuk

Paris, Shows

Paris: G I R L @ Perrotin

June 25, 2014 butterfly

After initially meeting up in Miami in 2007, multi-talented musician/designer Pharrell Williams and French gallerist Emmanuel Perrotin decided to continue their artistic collaboration seven years later with an exhibition curated especially for Galerie Perrotin’s new space, the Salle de Bal in Paris.

Set in a former ballroom at the Hôtel du Grand Veneur, a 17th century Hôtel
Particulier in the Marais area of Paris, “G I R L” is a contemporary art exhibition, which brings together 48 artworks – including 12 specially produced works. The show pays tribute to femininity through the vision of 37 artists / including 18 women.

G I R L - Perrotin Paris

Pharrell says, “Just like my album [G I R L], what I tried to do is offer many different facets of my appreciation for women…I love women everywhere. I make no apologies for the wide spectrum of affinity for women.”

Participating artists include: Marina Abramovic & Ulay, Chiho Aoshima, Daniel Arsham, Valérie Belin, Sophie Calle, Johan Creten, Tracey Emin, Daniel Firman, Gelitin, Guerrilla Girls, Laurent Grasso, Gregor Hildebrandt, JR, Alex Katz, KAWS, Bharti Kher, Klara Kristalova, Mr., Guy Limone, Annette Messager, Ryan McGinley, Takashi Murakami, Prune Nourry, Yoko Ono, Jean-Michel Othoniel, Rob Pruitt, Paola Pivi, Terry Richardson, Germaine Richier, Cindy Sherman, Taryn Simon, Mickalene Thomas, Aya Takano, Agnès Thurnauer, Xavier Veilhan, Andy Warhol, Tom Wesselmann…
G I R L - Perrotin Paris

Some artists have also decided to illustrate Pharrell in their artwork like Takashi Murakami. Daniel Arsham’s The Future Pharrell features a glass and resin life-size statue while Laurent Grasso painted Pharrell as Napoleon on a horse before a colossal statue of an Egyptian queen. The Japanese artist Mr. and the American artist Rob Pruitt have created, respectively, a painting of Pharrell with the word “GIRLS” on it, and a sofa, Studio Loveseat, which depicts Pharrell’s image over the years.

G I R L - Perrotin Paris