Resource Pack - Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Resource Pack
INTRODUCTION
KAWS found his way into graffiti through his love of skateboarding as a teenager, often
making the short journey into Manhattan from Jersey City. Through graffiti, he put his tag on
walls across New York City and began using the pseudonym ‘KAWS’ simply because he liked the
way the formations of the letters worked together. After graduating from high school in 1992 he
started using billboards and other public advertisements as canvases for his paintings. He began
unlocking glass panel covered advertisements to add his own paintings in the studio and replace
them in their cases. He used acrylic paint applied with no visible brush strokes, often making it
seem like his additions were a part of the original ad. He later said that this wasn’t an attack on
advertisers or a rebellion against their campaigns, but more that he chose adverts based on what
he was visually attracted to.
In 1997 KAWS first visited Japan, somewhere he had always had an interest in and was inspired by
the products people in Japan were creating. Also inspired by Pop artists such as Claes Oldenburg
and Tom Wesselmann, he began to make editions. KAWS saw creating toys as a way into the
world of sculpture, a more conceivable and feasible way to produce his ideas in 3D form. The
sculptures he eventually went on to create replicate the look and feel of his toys. He made his
first toy, COMPANION in 1999 with Japanese company Bounty Hunter.
In 2001 the founder of ‘*A Bathing Ape’ Nigo asked KAWS to collaborate with him on a clothing line.
This commercialist attitude, akin to Oldenburg and more recently Takashi Murakami (a prolific Japanese
artist) has driven KAWS to create many different products but maintains that he doesn’t separate art
from product. Alongside this development in his career, he also started to paint large canvases as well
as paintings inserted into plastic blister packages, some commissioned by Nigo, in his signature
cartoon style. Versions of well-known cartoons became central characters in these paintings which
included THE KIMPSONS, KAWSbob and KURFS. He was invited to exhibit THE KIMPSONS
paintings in an exhibition in Tokyo in 2001 alongside a series of black and white paintings of KAWS’
character CHUM.
OriginalFake, a company formed by KAWS and Medicom Toy, opened a Masamichi Katayamadesigned store in Tokyo in 2006. The company was founded to create and sell clothing and toys.
After a great deal of success, the artist decided to close the company in May 2013 (the seventh
anniversary of the company).
INTRODUCTION
Packaged paintings became a regular feature in KAWS exhibitions and exist as crossovers between art,
design and product. Characters including THE KIMPSONS and KURFS were included in these small
paintings.
‘I did them as a series of packaged paintings. I had all these friends at the time who were collecting
prototype toys and dropping three grand a figure. I was thinking, if I had that money I’d be buying
artwork. I’d be buying drawings. But none of them were collecting art… I was interested in the idea
of product as art. So I did a series of paintings all hand-painted on canvas, and then mass-produced
these blister packs to hold them and the back had a die-cut shape that let you see the stretcher, like
the little ‘squeeze me’ hole in the packaging of a toy.’
KAWS’ museum exhibitions include solo shows at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, High
Museum of Art Atlanta, The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, and The Aldrich Contemporary
Art Museum in Connecticut, Galerie Perrotin (Paris, Hong Kong and New York) and Honor Fraser
Gallery in Los Angeles. His work is held in variuos public collections including; Nerman Museum of
Contemporary Art, Overland Park, Kansas; Rosenblum Collection, Paris; and Zabludowicz Collection,
London.
KAWS has collaborated with people including artists Pushead, Todd James, Mark Dean Veca and
Hajime Sorayama; US companies Kiehl’s, Lucasfilm Ltd., The Simpsons Movie, Nike, Supreme and
Marc Jacobs; and Japanese companies realmadHECTIC, *A Bathing Ape, Comme de Garçons
and Undercover.
‘Art was something I always gravitated towards as a way of entering another place...’
CHARACTERS
The characters KAWS creates become a sort
of family for the artist “Yeah they talk to me.
And it’s really annoying. They all exist in this
grim little way. I don’t know if they each have
a personality, but the COMPANION and
ACCOMPLICE are definitely key… people.”
KAWS’ characters have trademark features skull and crossbones heads and X eyes.
COMPANION was the first character to transfer
from two to three dimensions, in the form of
a limited edition toy KAWS developed whilst
in Tokyo in 1999, in collaboration with Bounty
Hunter. The COMPANION has been created in
varying forms including with its head in its hands
and even semi-dissected to reveal its innermost
workings. These characters often stand or sit
in downtrodden poses but as with GOOD
INTENTIONS, the COMPANION appears more
confident and self-assured.
ACCOMPLICE is possibly inspired by the Pink
Panther and by the rabbit from the cult film
Donnie Darko. It is similarly unsettling and we
are not sure if he is friend or foe, our accomplice
or another’s, and in what endeavours.
CHUM exudes can-do confidence and perhaps
suggests the intimidation of corporate culture
when inflated beyond individual human scale.
BENDY, a serpentine character who infiltrated
KAWS’ early advertisement disruptions, is seen
in variations of form including BORN TO BEND.
THE KIMPSONS characters reference the
well-known US sitcom’s familiar individuals.
KURFS and KAWSbob also hint towards
recognisable characters from popular culture
but with KAWS’ trademark features.
MATERIAL/ COLOUR
“there is no colour that couldn’t work together”
The process of creating perfectly executed paintings involves beginning with a painting-by-numbers
style image identifying the specific colour for each section. The sections are then filled in by the artist
and his assistants and painted over many times in the same colour to create the strong, dense colour.
The colours he uses are often his own creations. For his paintings he uses acrylic paint and applies it
using foam brushes with the exception of fine lines. KAWS used acrylic paint when working with
animation companies and he continues to use it.
“Colour is just something I enjoy working with, you can change something so much with colour… pieces
gain their own personality depending on how you position colours together.”
KAWS, 26 November 2013
ARTPHAIRE: What are the tools you can’t live without?
KAWS: I use hardware sponge brushes for the majority of the paintings. They are black foam on
a wooden handle and they cost about $0.30. I started using them when I was painting over the
advertisements, the bus shelters and phone booths in this Mylar material. When I got out of college,
my first job was working in animation. I used to take some of the acrylic paint that they weren’t using
home with me and use it to paint over ads, because it was the perfect material.
MATERIAL/ COLOUR
MATERIAL/ PROCESS
KAWS creates beautifully crafted large scale
sculptures using bronze, fibreglass, wood and
aluminium which are shown in both indoor
and outdoor locations. Some sculptures are
painted and some left showing their wooden
surface, as is the case with SMALL LIE. The
large sculptures are made in sections and
connected together upon each installation.
Afromosia, a durable wood sometimes referred
to as African Teak, is used for many of these
sculptures. It is a wood that is relatively easy to
work with and commonly used for boatbuilding,
flooring and furniture.
Corian (brand name) is a material made from
a blend of acrylic and minerals and has a solid,
hard surface. Its non-porous surface helps to
give a smooth, un-blemished finish. KAWS has
used Corian to create sculptures including
HE EATS ALONE (WARM REGARDS) and
NEW HOME.
Installation of GOOD INTENTIONS at YSP
Afromosia wood (604 x 304 x 248)
HE EATS ALONE (WARM REGARDS) 2013
Corian (213 x 226 x 79)
L: CHUM 2003
Plastic (33.02 x 20.32 cm)
KAWS’ smaller works are often made using vinyl. ‘I love the way my drawings translate in the soft vinyl
material. If one day I feel my work would look better in another medium I would stop using soft vinyl
that same day. I do also like to experiment with other processes when I think the result would work
better, for example the CHUM was made by bowl mold and the BENDY was a bendy toy with a case
made by injection mold.’
SCALE
Starting with small-scale sculptures seemed
an accessible and acheivable way for KAWS to
translate his characters into three dimensions.
Producing toys became a way to simplify the
realisation of creating sculpture and became
a gateway to monumental sculptures. He
approaches creating sculpture and toys with
the same dedication and without distinction
of one being high art and one not.
KAWS purposely replicated certain
characteristics from his series of toys into his
large-scale sculptures and fully intended there
to be a direct correlation between the two.
Features including the seams on the joints of
limbs remained in the large sculptures.
SMALL LIE 2013 Afromosia 10 metres
The COMPANION was originally created in 1999 as a seven and three-quarter inch toy and has
continued to grow in scale since. The second version, in 2004, was a thirteen-inch toy; in 2006
it become a ten feet tall dissected version; and in 2007 a four-foot sculpture. Each of these
incarnations have changed in design as well as scale.
COMPANION 1999, 20cm, ALONG THE WAY (featuring
two COMPANION figures) at ArtZuid 2015, 5.5m (18ft)
COMPANION DISSECTED toy and 1.2 metres (4ft)
SCALE
COMPANION (PASSING THROUGH) has been produced at various scales including toy size and
large-scale, first shown at Hong Kong’s Harbour City in 2010 standing almost 5 metres high (16ft), and
as a giant balloon for Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 2012.
KAWS produces paintings at a wide range of
sizes including small hand-painted canvases
inserted into mass-produced blister pack to blur
the boundary between art and product.
Of friend and collaborator Nigo, KAWS says,
“All the stuff he was doing was super inspiring
and at the time I think he was really pushing the
boundaries for street culture, that clothing
scene. When I did my first show in Tokyo in 2001
I designed a pillow and I wanted to these package
paintings and he’s the one that sourced the
factory to help me make them.”
He also creates large-scale paintings, such as the
seven metre wide triptych Silent Hill (2011),
which spans huge lengths across gallery walls.
A new work created for his exhibition at
The High Museum of Art in 2012 comprised
a grid of 27 round canvases each one metre
in diametre and featuring close-up sections
of some of KAWS’ characters.
PRODUCT/ ART
KAWS has worked in the rare art toy niche since 1999 when he first collaborated with Bounty Hunter,
a Japanese Harajuku toy and clothing company, to create vinyl figurines. Artist Michael Lau is credited
for kickstarting the urban vinyl movement that same year in Hong Kong. In an interview with Tobey
Maguire for Interview magazine, KAWS explains how he started creating toys.
MAGUIRE: How did you first get involved with making toys?
KAWS: I was always really into the pop artists and the editions they would make with Gemini G.E.L.
I just didn’t think I’d meet anyone who would actually ask me to do a sculpture. But in ’97, I went to
Tokyo and started developing a relationship with some guys there—making stuff with different
companies. The opportunity came up to make a toy. There was a company called Bounty Hunter
that was making some of the first toys that were a little bit different. Before that, my idea of a toy
was, like, Kenner or Hasbro. But they were making small runs of 500 toys. As soon as I saw them,
I thought, these are like those Gemini editions. It’s just that people’s perception of a toy is different.
I had to figure out a way of seeing my work in 3-D. My project opened up. I did rotation drawings,
and they came back with a sculpture that I would adjust.
MAGUIRE: Do you see a toy and a sculpture as roughly the same thing?
KAWS: The material and scale are different, that’s all. I’ve been doing bronze sculptures where I auto
body-paint them different colours. Those materials are traditional. They are within the history of fine
art. But, in my mind, it’s the same dimensional process. I remember I took the toys to the New Museum
to sell them on consignment. And Colette in Paris sold some for me. I took that money and produced
my next toy. Then I started my own website in 2002 and sold directly to customers. That gave me
enough money so I could continue making toys.
COMPANION (RESTING PLACE) was released
in the compnay’s final season. The 9-inch vinyl
figurine depicts COMPANION as a figure divided
in half. One half sees a grey and white-edition
COMPANION, while the other gives a glimpse
into the innards of the iconic character. The piece
asserts several ideas in a relatively simple form
– of the temporality of life, the relationship
between a brand and its creator, and more
– all of which are underlined by the medium
by which it is expressed.
COMMISSIONS & COLLABORATIONS
As well as collaborating with KAWS, Nigo also commissioned him to create paintings and through
him met Pharrell Williams who became a long time supporter of the artist. Talking about KAWS, Pharrell
says ‘To our generation, he’s the guy that made us pay attention to art.’
Williams and Nigo both commissioned KAWS to create works for their personal collections. ‘It’s weird
because I feel like my paintings are my kids, and they live in a better house than I do. It’s like I sent them
to a really good school!’
Kanye West commissioned KAWS to create the
album cover as well as album art for 808s &
Heartbreak which was released in 2008.
In 2013, KAWS’ company redesigned MTV’s
moon man statue for their 2013 MTV Video
Music Awards.
COMPANION (PASSING THROUGH) was
incorporated into a balloon for the 2012 Macy’s
Thanksgiving Day Parade.
In 2014 Pharrell Williams commissioned KAWS to
design fragrance packaging.
RELATED ARTISTS
Claes Oldenburg
Born in Stockholm in 1929, Oldenburg became well known for creating large-scale versions of
everyday objects including lipsticks, cigarettes, safety pins and food items such as hamburgers,
apple cores and ice creams. These installations played with transformations of scale as well as
materials; creating soft sculptures of objects on a huge scale. Alongside sculpting, Oldenburg is
known for his lithographs and as a creator of Happenings, which can be in the form of a performance
or event that often occur with the participation of the audience and with elements of spontaneity.
Tom Wesselmann
Wesselmann was one of the leading US Pop artists of the 1960s, rejecting abstract
expressionism in favour of the classical representations of the nude, still life and landscape.
He created collages and assemblages incorporating everyday objects and advertising ephemera in
an effort to make images as powerful as the abstract expressionism he admired. He is perhaps best
known for his Great American Nude series with their flat forms and intense colour.
In the seventies, Wesselmann continued to explore the ideas and media which had preoccupied
him during the sixties. Most significantly, his large Standing Still Life series, composed of free
standing shaped canvases, showed small intimate objects on a grand scale. In 1980 Wesselmann,
using the pseudonym Slim Stealingworth, wrote an autobiography documenting the evolution of
his artistic work. He continued exploring shaped canvases (first exhibited in the 1960s) and began
creating his first works in metal. He instigated the development of a laser-cutting application, which
would allow him to make a faithful translation of his drawings in cut-out metal. The 1990s and 2000s
saw the artist expanding on these themes, creating abstract three-dimensional images that he
described as “going back to what I had desperately been aiming for in 1959.” He had indeed come
full circle. In his final years he returned to the female form in his Sunset Nudes series of oil paintings
on canvas, whose bold compositions, abstract imagery, and sanguine moods often recall the odalisques
of Henri Matisse.
Peter Saul
US painter Peter Saul is linked with Pop Art through his appropriation of popular culture
imagery, depictions of political history and everyday objects. He is known for his use of bright colours
and a cartoon style. ‘The whole thing is my imagination, that’s the first thing you need to understand.
I made it up.’ Saul’s politically charged, and often politically incorrect paintings are rooted in a system
of removal from the artist’s beliefs, void of morals and ambivalent in their politics. Saul sources imagery
from popular culture, current and historical events for his cartoonish and surreal depictions.
The resulting paintings of the grotesque are more akin to social commentary than clear political
statements.
Karl Wirsum
Karl Wirsum, as part of the Hairy Who group in the early 1960s developed a style that combines a
graphic sensibility – vivid, flat colors, simplified cartoon-like figures – with a sense of humor evident
in the works themselves and also in titles that second guess and play with words. Wirsum’s imaginary
creatures and super hero characters enact bizarre scenes. Figures from outer space perform domestic
tasks such as mowing the lawn; space men happily orbit starry objects. His work exists in the buffer
zone between real and imaginary, mundane domesticity and super hero powers, day-to-day existence
and daydreams.
RELATED ARTISTS
Keith Haring
In 1980, Haring found a highly effective medium that allowed him to communicate with a wider
audience, when he noticed the unused advertising panels covered with matte black paper in
a subway station. He began to create drawings in white chalk upon these blank paper panels
throughout the subway system. Between 1980 and 1985, Haring produced hundreds of these
public drawings in rapid rhythmic lines, sometimes creating as many as forty “subway drawings”
in one day. This seamless flow of images became familiar to New York commuters, who often
would stop to engage the artist when they encountered him at work. The subway became,
as Haring said, a “laboratory” for working out his ideas and experimenting with his simple lines.
In April 1986, Haring opened the Pop Shop, a retail store in Soho selling T-shirts, toys, posters,
buttons and magnets bearing his images. Haring considered the shop to be an extension of his work
and painted the entire interior of the store in an abstract black on white mural, creating a striking and
unique retail environment. The shop was intended to allow people greater access to his work, which
was now readily available on products at a low cost. The shop received criticism from many in the art
world, however Haring remained committed to his desire to make his artwork available to as wide an
audience as possible, and received strong support for his project from friends, fans and mentors
including Andy Warhol.
Andy Warhol
Warhol was a US painter, film-maker and author, and a leading figure in the Pop Art movement.
In the early 1960s, he began to experiment with reproductions based on advertisements, newspaper
headlines and other mass-produced images from American popular culture such as Campbell’s soup
tins and Coca Cola bottles. In 1962, he began his series portraits of Marilyn Monroe. Other subjects
given similar treatment included Jackie Kennedy and Elvis Presley. The same year he took part in
the New Realists exhibition in New York, which was the first important survey of Pop Art.
In 1963, Warhol began to make experimental films. His studio, known as the Factory, became a
meeting point for young artists, actors, musicians and hangers-on. One of these, Valerie Solanas,
shot and seriously wounded him in 1968.
H C Westermann
Dovetailing corners and doweling joints with the care of a master carpenter, Westermann made
fantasy objects that were sometimes playful and punny, but often reflected strong moral feelings
about the world. His creations ranged from a giant peanut carved of Eastern pine, notable for its
sculptural purity, to a series of ‘’Death Ships’’ commemorating the fate of US servicemen
killed in the Pacific by kamikaze pilots in World War II.
His art was unabashedly autobiographical, and he liked to ring variations on the theme of a tiny house,
in which minuscule figures disported in dramatic scenes. But Westermann, seen by many critics as an
artist of genuinely American sensibility unaffected by European esthetics, resolutely refused to give
interpretation to his work. ‘’It puzzles me, too,’’ he once said when asked in an interview what an object
meant. ‘’How can I explain a work like that?
‘’I feel that life is very fragile. We’re all just hanging by a thread; it’s very spooky. I can best come
to grips with it by doing my work. I guess that’s why I’m an artist.’’
QUOTES
‘I’ve always been interested in how far you can take an image and retain how recognisable it is, or if
people retain it at all with taking the colour away, taking most of the drawing away.’
‘I’m thinking about how these cartoons and objects operate in your life and growing up… when I first
started doing some of the paintings in this style I was thinking about how I can be in Japan, you can
be with people that don’t speak the same language but they know the same sounds – a d’oh from
Homer Simpson – just how that can translate. I just feel like this visual vocabulary just has such a
reach and it’s amazing to think that people are growing up on the same sort of imagery. I like to take
elements of that and put it into the work and redistribute it.’
‘Ever since I was small the way I was exposed to things was through print, through packaging, through
magazines, through objects, so when I make work and when I think about how to communicate, I want
to reach people through those similar channels.’
‘I found it weird how infused a cartoon could become in people’s lives; the impact it could have,
compared to, like, regular politics.’
‘I truly enjoy painting and I worked hard so I can be in a position to paint. When I am painting, it’s a
really good time for me. I can zone out on most other things in life and can just be in the studio and
focus. I did make it a point in recent years to begin trying to do more exhibitions as a way to get my
paintings in front of people. Because, you can make something look so good in a print magazine or
online using vectors and other things like that; but people can assume that that is all there is to it
and it’s just manufactured. It’s only when you are right in front of a painting that you see that
everything is actually done by hand – there’s no masking, it is actually shaky in some places and
there are some subtle nuances that are unavoidable. I aim to make something as straight as possible
of course, but in the end, it’s going to be a little fucked up in some places – but, that’s the quality I like.’
‘The first skull and crossbones was over a billboard. I didn’t think of it as something that I would
just continue. I like the element of the character just because it is a skull and crossbone and that
is probably the simplest, most easily identifiable image in all culture. Everyone knows what is skull
is, there’s no question… also painting in a way that makes it seem friendly and approachable. Like
a sweeter version of death, I guess.”
KAWS speaking about his series of packaged paintings:
‘I was going to Japan and I had a few friends who would collect everything under the sun – cars,
sneakers, vintage clothing, Star Wars prototype figures – but none of them really collected art.
Nobody in the younger crowd was buying paintings, so I did this series. It was everything I love
about toys, collecting and art and pointing out parallels between them all. Most people who were
collecting toys then didn’t think about art. It wasn’t on their radar, the same way a lot of people
who collect paintings weren’t thinking about toys. I guess when I was younger, I always felt there
was this hierarchy where art was on a pedestal, and other forms of collecting were thought of as
lesser. So I made this series of work where there is no hierarchy. Those package paintings are what
go me painting on canvas.‘
QUOTES
‘I wouldn’t take so long making a painting and then just go and let people do whatever with it, you
know? But, I also believe that “true to your vision” doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to be
hands-on with everything. I know there are plenty of artists that operate with large studios and maybe
not even ever touch their paintings; but their paintings are still true to their vision. I don’t think there
is a right or wrong way to do it. I have two assistants that help me paint and fill in. There’s things that
they can do that I don’t need to be doing. I don’t need to be painting the same white square 15 times
in a row – a lot the colors you see are bright like that because it is painted over and over in the same
shade. The same way that I’m not at the factory making each one of my toys, but they are exactly
what I want so it’s just a matter of figuring out what’s possible and what you need help in. I try to find
a balance where, yes, of course I want to control the painting and have it come out exactly as I want
but no, I don’t want to spend the entire time doing something that I can easily allocate to somebody
who is competent.’
‘The first time I made a toy was the first time I got to see my work in three-dimensional form. It was
called COMPANION in 99. Before that I always imagined sculpture as being this thing with patrons
that commission you, this inaccessible thing and then I met these guys in Tokyo who were making toys,
they were making them themselves, and it just clicked – instead of that monumental thing that has
been in my head since I was little, I was going to make a thousand little ones… Before that day I had
a pencil and a pen, then after that day somebody was like ‘oh, there’s paint’ – it just gave me a whole
other world to work within.’
The word ‘toy’ is so loaded. Have you ever been pushed to rebrand your toys as small editions instead?
‘To me it’s the same thing, except ‘toy’ implies something to be played with, and my sculptures never
had a function other than to be viewed. I always thought it was funny how people like to put things in
a category and label them. I have played with this idea a lot. I’ve made bronze pieces, but then painted
them in bright solid colours to make them appear like plastic. I’ve also made pieces in a toy factory in
China that are four feet tall and have the same presence as any medium-size sculpture. In the end my
thought process is the same: I just want to make something good and not worry about how it’s labeled.‘
‘When I started to do the larger sculptures it was important to me to make them seem exactly like the
small toys that I was making so. Like keeping the seams so that you would automatically think that
these are moveable. I like to keep these elements and have there be really no difference from a
two-inch piece to a fifteen-foot piece.’
On his COMPANION (PASSING THROUGH) character:
‘He’s not sad (laughs)! He’s just hanging out. When I first did the sculpture it was for Harbour City
in Hong Kong. I went to see the location in Kowloon, where the ferry lets off. They were telling me
that it was only up for a month and a half and that there would be over a million people trafficking
past it during that time. I started to think about if I were a COMPANION and I had to be there?
I’d be mortified. What else would you do but hang out?I also like that you always see work like this
or characters treated as a super hero or proud and macho. I like the idea that this is more suitable
to me and to the times. Its not always all great.’
CV
EDUCATION
1996
-BFA School of Visual Arts, New York, NY
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2017
- WHERE THE END STARTS, Yuz Museum, Shanghai, China
2016
- KAWS, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, UK
- WHERE THE END STARTS, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, TX
2015
- Newcomb Art Gallery at Woldenburg Art Center, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA
2014
- Solo show at CAC Malaga, Spain
- Honor Fraser Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2013
- PASS THE BLAME, Galerie Perrotin New York, USA
- Mary Boone Gallery in cooperation with Galerie Perrotin, New York, USA
- Ups and Downs, The Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, USA
- KAWS @ PAFA, inside PAFA’s Historic Landmark Building
- Sculpture Plinth Exhibition Program: KAWS, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
- KAWS GISWIL, More Gallery, Giswil, Switzerland
-Ohhh…,Kaikai Kiki Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2012
- Imaginary Friends, Galerie Perrotin, Paris, France
- The Nature of Need, Galerie Perrotin, Hong Kong
- KAWS: Down Time, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA
2011
- KAWS: Companion, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA
- FOCUS: KAWS, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, TX
- Hold The Line, Honor Fraser Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
- Passing Through, The Standard, New York, NY
- Passing Through, Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, CT
2010
- Passing Through, Harbour City, Hong Kong, China
- Pay the Debt to Nature, Galerie Perrotin, Paris, France
- KAWS, Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, CT
- Galeria Javier Lopez, Madrid, Spain
CV
2009
- The Long Way Home, Honor Fraser, Los Angeles, CA
2008
- Gering & López Gallery, New York, NY
- Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, Miami, FL
2003
- Original Fake, BAPE Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2002
- Elms Lesters Painting Room, London, UK
- C9, MU Art Foundation, Eindhoven, Netherlands
2001
- Tokyo First, Parco Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2015
-ArtZuid 2015, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2014
- If You’re Accidentally Not Included, Don’t Worry About It., curated by Peter Saul, Zurcher Studio, New
York, NY
- Joyride, Marlborough Chelsea, New York, NY
- Ok, I’ll rename it, Bill Brady KC, Kansas City, MO
- Knock! Knock!, Galeria Javier Lopez, Madrid, Spain
- Full House, Garth Greenan Gallery, New York, NY
- PAINT NEW YORK, GL Strand, Copenhagen, Denmark
2013
- “Happy Birthday Galerie Perrotin / 25ans”, TRIPOSTAL, Lille, France
2012
- White Columns Benefit Exhibition and Auction, White Columns, New York, NY
2011
- PRETTY ON THE INSIDE, organized by Erik Parker and KAWS, Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York, NY
- Party Animals, Royal-T, Los Angeles, CA
- Art in the Streets, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA
- FACEMAKER, curated by Katy Grayson, Royal/T, Los Angeles, CA
2010
- Mutant Pop, Curated by Joe Grillo, Laura Grant, and Brandon Joyce, Galleri Loyal, Malmo, Sweden
- It Ain’t Fair, OHWOW, Miami, FL
- The Reflected Gaze - Self Portraiture Today, The Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA
CV
2009
- Just what is it that make today’s painting so different, so appealing, Gering & López Gallery, New
York, NY
- Stages, organized by Lance Armstrong and Nike, Galerie Emannuel Perrotin, Paris, France
- Alpha Exotica, curated by Dimitrios Antonitsis, Hydra School Projects, Athens, Greece
- The New Yorkers, V1 Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark
- Plastic Culture, Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston, UK
- I Can’t Feel My Face, curated by KAWS, Royal-T, Los Angeles, CA
2008
- Everything Else, Franklin Parrasch Gallery, New York, NY
2007
- POPcentric, Gering & López Gallery, New York, NY
2006
- Info Babble, Richard & Dolly Maass Gallery, Purchase, NY
- Ugly Winners, Galerie Du Juor Agnes B., Paris, France
2004
- Beautiful Losers, curated by Aaron Rose and Christian Strike, Le Tri Postal, Lille, France, Palazzo
Dell’Arte, Milan, Italy, USF Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa, FL, Contemporary Museum, Baltimore,
MD, Orange County - - Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA, Yerba Buena Arts Center, San Francisco,
CA, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, OH
2003
- SK8 on the Wall, Parco Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2002
- Session The Bowl, Deitch Projects, New York, NY
- ALIFE Shop, Deitch Projects, New York, NY
- Coded Language, City Gallery Chastain, Atlanta, GA
2001
- Shortcuts, Nicosia Municipal Arts Centre, Athens, Greece
- Pierides Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, Greece
- New Acquisitions from the Dakis Joannou Collection, Deste Foundation, Athens, Greece
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
High Museum, Atlanta, Georgia
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, Texas
Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, Kansas
Rosenblum Collection, Paris
Zabludowicz Collection, London