All photographs by Steve Benisty for Whitewall.
Whitewall's Winter 2012 Luxury Issue premiers in Miami this week with two covers designed by KAWS that accompany a 12-page feature on the artist. Below is an excerpt from the interview (we'll be doing sneak peeks of the issue each week this winter) and photos from the studio visit shoot that didn't make the article. To purchase the Winter issue, go HERE.
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Whitewall visited the Williamsburg, Brooklyn, studio of the artist KAWS in mid-August. He was preparing for his upcoming show, “Hold the Line,” at Honor Fraser Gallery in Los Angeles. On one wall of his long studio hung the largest painting on canvas he had done, Silent City (2011), comprising three 120-by-96-inch panels. Elsewhere were larger-than-life sculptures of his character Companion, measuring 96 inches in height. Scattered throughout were drawings, mockups, and models of future projects and collaborations that KAWS told us about, but we can’t reveal to you just yet (trust us, it will be worth the wait). A few of his tondo paintings, many of which were included in the Honor Fraser show, were on the wall as well. As one of his studio assistants made a few final touch-ups to some of the paintings, KAWS sat down with us to talk about this new body of work, the road that led him here, and his ability to reach an audience previously untapped by the contemporary art world.
WHTIEWALL: A lot has been written about you growing up in Jersey City and skateboarding around there and New York City, and from that getting into graffiti, where you used the tag “KAWS.” You haven’t really been doing graffiti, though, for ten years, so why continue to use the name KAWS?
KAWS: I still feel it’s important that I keep the name KAWS. I spent most of my life building and working under that name. The work I make now has grown from those beginnings, but doesn’t have anything to do with graffiti or street art. I really enjoyed that part of my life, but to me KAWS is just my name and it shouldn’t get compartmentalized. To me it’s frustrating how every article you read today [about me] starts off saying, “street artist, graffiti artist.”
WW: So just because you’re now showing in a gallery or museum, you’re not going to change what you’ve built to be “by Brian Donnelly.”
KAWS: Yeah, people don’t talk about artists like “that life-painter artist.” For all other categories, it’s normal to just look at what the artist is actually making, but when it comes to graf and street art, people just sort of generalize. The thing, is with graf you start really young, and then it’s such a public thing and you actually get seen for it. I don’t mean to generalize, but a lot of artists coming to galleries or museums are getting their first notice in their mid- to late twenties or thirties after they had grad school and all this time to really figure out what they’re doing and how they’re going to speak about what they’re doing. It’s not like a 17- or 18-year-old kid who says, you know, “I’m not going to play football tonight, I’m going to go paint a highway.” I think you get kind of stuck with this perception [because your work is so public from such a young age].
WW: You’ve said that more people will see your work if you do a skateboard rather than a lithograph.
KAWS: Growing up the way I did, a lot of art I saw was in magazines, skate stuff, T-shirts, and I always thought it was good to work through those channels. Now I like the idea that a young kid could walk into a gallery and feel comfortable because they might know a bit about my work, even if it’s just the toys. I love that. I always felt like when I walked into a white box that I was guilty of shoplifting or something. I always felt not okay being in there.
WW: It seems like a big turning point for you was in 1997 when you went to Japan. That’s where you did your first toy.
KAWS: I knew a few guys that were involved in making products over there, and I’ve always thought of Japan as the other side of the world, which . . . it is. It always seemed like such a different culture, and it is a different culture. You go there and it’s not like going to London or Paris or anywhere — it’s just totally different.
Through Stash and Futura, I had met these guys that had a shop called Hectic. There was sort of this community that I fell right into. There were streetwear brands and one was called Bounty Hunter, and they started making toys. I thought of it as an opportunity to make my work in 3D, so I did it, not thinking much about it. After that, I realized it was a great way to start making sculpture. I always appreciated [sculpture], but never knew how other people get into it. I always assumed you had to have a rich patron who wanted to commission you.
