| “To say KAWS’s sculptures and paintings are commercial and kitschy—even vacuous,” writes A.i.A. editor William S. Smith in our September issue, “is to offer something that’s closer to a description of the work than a critique of it.” KAWS supporters often contend that the artist’s merging of the high and low—whether in a museum exhibition or Uniqlo collab—offers an antidote to art world snobbery. But Smith’s social history of the KAWS phenomenonchallenges both the snob’s and the populist’s position. “If KAWS is peddling a democratic art,” he says, “it is worth questioning why its primary motifs should be exhaustion and death.”
Claims that KAWS is democratizing art cite spikes in museum attendance during his shows. He enjoys a level of name recognition more common among musicians and fashion designers than among artists. A number of galleries have been cashing in on these sorts of names by validating the artistic ambitions of people who have achieved celebrity status in other fields. Jackson Arnreviewed a show of paintings by director Harmony Korine at Gagosian for our June/July issue. Smith’s reading of KAWS resonates with points made by Arn: “Accusing Korine of nihilism or decadence is like arguing with yourself: his work embraces its faults so single-mindedly that they begin to seem like virtues.”
Breaking beyond the museum’s walls has long been ascribed a subversive intent, for better or for worse. In our November 2016 issue, Geir Haraldsethwrote a report on a street art festival in Stavanger, the capital of Norway’s oil industry. “This instant art, which is highly visible and cheap to make and show,” Haraldseth says, “bathes itself in the illusory glow of subcultural rebellion.” |
