I nspired by and commenting on contemporary society overwhelmed and inundated by an abundance of images, advertisements and cartoons, KAWS has established himself as a leading proponent of a new iteration of Pop sensibility in the 21st century. Chum is a prime example of the artist’s striking visual language and bold adoption of styles and imagery associated with Pop Art. After graduating from studying illustration at the School of Visual Arts in New York, the artist began to use the tag KAWS as a young graffiti artist in Jersey City, a bold and iconographic practise which has gone on to influence much of his oeuvre. It was in the early 1990s that KAWS began to parody and subvert corporate and political advertisements on the side of bus shelters and billboards. Gradually expanding his imagery beyond graffiti, KAWS would appropriate recognisable cartoon figures from popular culture to invent his own host of characters, one of the most emblematic and recognisable of which is CHUM. Extending the art historical tradition of restyling images by pop artists like Roy Lichtenstein, KAWS’s figures’ heads are frequently embed with disturbing or jarring elements, such as the characteristic crosses for eyes seen in Chum. It is through these figure heads that KAWS has established himself as a creative entrepreneur in the vein of Andy Warhol and Takashi Murakami, infiltrating the realm of mass consumerism with his limited-edition figurines and streetwear collaborations, carving out a truly distinctive visual lexicon that permeates the world of contemporary art and popular culture. His indebtedness to artists like Keith Haring, whose Pop Show was reappropriated by KAWS’s own shop OriginalFake, is clear, yet the artist’s meticulous craft, which combines elements of high design and the aesthetics of street art, imbues his work with a distinctive character.

Foregoing art’s tradition anti-commercial idealism, Chum epitomises the artist’s playful and dynamic examination of mainstream visual culture. The cartoon subject, which bears a resemblance to the iconic Michelin Man, is marked with KAWS’s signature ‘X’ eyes, which originate from KAWS’s time tagging branded posters throughout New York City. Demonstrating KAWS’s meticulous handling of paint, the controlled lines and fluidity of colour seen in the present work imbue the rotund CHUM figure with a sense of movement, as if he were striding toward the viewer from the wall. The smooth, uniform plane of black rendered in a deep matte shade are cut through by KAWS’s determined lines of white, rendering the figure even more exaggerated despite the muted palette. The exaggerated masculinity of the figure, as the artist describes, allows the viewer to “compare body postures and assertiveness–or lack of it–in front of a CHUM… we are using it as an excuse to see ourselves...If, for the Pop artists of the 1960s, the premise was, 'You are what you buy,' for KAWS it would be, 'You are what you see.'"(KAWS quoted in Mónica Ramírex-Montagut,, "KAWS: SEEING YOU SEEING YOURSELF," In Ian Luna and Lauren A. Gould, eds. KAWS, New York 2010, p.133). In infiltrating the worlds of mass consumerism and popular culture, KAWS’s work constitutes a new paradigm in art history in which his work functions less as a commentary on consumer culture, but as a continuous enactment of the complex role of art and popular media in everyday lives within capitalist culture.

當代社會充斥大量圖像、廣告和卡通，人們被各種資訊淹沒，KAWS從中得到靈感，用創作表達他對這些現象的看法，成為二十一世紀新一代普普藝術的領軍人物。《CHUM》是KAWS大膽運用普普藝術的風格和形象展現其藝術語言的重要典例。KAWS於紐約視覺藝術學院主修插畫，畢業後以KAWS為藝名，在澤西市以年輕塗鴉藝術家的身分打響名號，他的塗鴉手法大膽突出，甚具標誌性，對日後的作品影響深遠。二十世紀九十年代初，KAWS開始在巴士站旁和廣告牌的公司和政治宣傳上塗鴉，或戲謔地模仿廣告海報。後來他將創作擴展至塗鴉以外，從流行文化挪用為人熟知的卡通形象，創造自己的卡通人物，當中最具代表性、辨識度最高的就是「CHUM」。他的人物延續羅伊・李奇登斯坦等普普藝術家肆意改造形象的傳統，頭部經常加入令人不安的突兀元素，例如《老友》的交叉眼。KAWS透過所設計的人物，推出限量版人偶商品，與街頭服裝品牌合作，打入普羅大眾的消費領域，創作出一套能夠同時滲透當代藝壇和流行文化的獨特視覺語彙，為自己打造如同安迪・沃荷和村上隆等創意實業家的地位。KAWS挪用凱斯・哈林「普普商店」的意念，創作出個人商店「OriginalFake」的系列，可見哈林對他的影響很深，他以精巧技藝結合高級設計和街頭藝術美學，為作品注入與眾不同的獨特個性。「在『CHUM』面前比較身段，看看誰夠信心堅定，或者缺乏信心……我們以它為藉口檢視自己……如果六十年代普普藝術家的前提是『你買甚麼就是甚麼』，KAWS的就會是『你看到甚麼就是甚麼』。」引述KAWS，莫妮卡・拉美瑞茲・蒙塔古特撰，〈KAWS︰看你看自己〉，載於伊恩・盧那和勞倫・A・古爾德編，《KAWS》，紐約，2010年，頁133。

《CHUM》無意表現傳統藝術的反商業化理想主義，反而展示了KAWS以玩世不恭的手法審視主流視覺文化。畫中的卡通人物酷似米其林輪胎先生，配上KAWS標誌性的交叉眼，後者是他早年在紐約市到處貼在廣告海報上的自創標貼。KAWS在此作展現處理顏料的精細技巧，他對線條掌控自如，色彩流麗，為身形渾圓的「CHUM」加添動感，他就像從牆上向觀眾大步走過來。黑色的平面以啞光顏料上色，色彩柔和均勻，卻被藝術家以勾勒人物的白色線條果斷劃破，讓人物造型更顯誇張。正如KAWS所描述，人物誇張的陽剛氣質讓觀眾
KAWS已經滲透於大眾消費至上的世界與流行文化中，他以創作在藝術史上開創出嶄新風格，其作品的意義不在於評論消費文化，反而是在資本主義文化下，將藝術和大眾媒體在日常生活中的複雜角色不斷呈現在世人眼前。