KAWS

Gering & Lopez Gallery, New York
Private Collection, Italy
Private Collection, London

Ridgefield, Connecticut, Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, KAWS, June 2010 - January 2011

KAWS, KAWS ONE, Tokyo 2001, n.p., illustrated in color
Monica Ramirez-Montagut, KAWS 1993-2010, New York 2010, p. 15, illustrated

i.-iv. This work is in excellent condition overall. Upon close inspection and only under raking light, there is very light wear along the edges of the work. Framed under Plexiglas vitrine. This work was not examined out of its frame.
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KAWS: Do you know that series of package paintings that I did? That was because I saw that these guys in Japan were collecting toys. I had friends that were spending $3,000 on a Star Wars prototype figure. They weren’t collecting art, they were collecting toys. So I did those package paintings where I mass-produced the packaging around the painting, but the painting itself was done individually. That was my way of bridging the gap between those two worlds. Because I realized that these guys are absolute connoisseurs of the stuff they collect. They can look at a toy and say, “Oh, this is a ’76. It came out in three versions.” It occurred to me that that kind of obsessive collecting isn’t any different than art.

TOBEY MAGUIRE: How many package paintings did you do the first time around?

KAWS: About 40. Before that I really was just painting over ads. But then when Nigo started giving me commissions, I started doing really different large-scale paintings—like the Kimpsons series.

TOBEY MAGUIRE: Yes, the Kimpsons. And what do you call the other characters?

KAWS: The Kurfs. Which is Smurfs. I like The Simpsons because they are such an instant read. You could be in a different country and go, “D’oh!” and everybody would know exactly what you’re talking about. I thought that was amazing. It’s also such an American cartoon.

The artist in conversation with Toby Maguire in, "KAWS," Interview, 10 May 2010