"I’m into Schulz as an artist, a company, and an icon; I got into his stuff just because I liked the looseness of the line work, and I thought that it was just sort of a nice thing to bring into my paintings."
H aving permanently blurred the line between abstraction and pop culture over the course of the past two decades, Untitled is a masterful example of the infamy of KAWS and his impact on the contemporary art zeitgeist. Subverting his image most notably on a menagerie of characters obscured by skulls and crossbones, KAWS elucidates the universality of human nature by reappropriating iconic imagery from all facets of pop culture. By approaching the inherent abstraction of the language behind cartoons and their visual tropes, KAWS challenges pre-established notions of semiotics. His pervasive act of parody introduces more complex feelings to the idyllic narratives of these characters and leaves viewers with feelings once unassociated with them: ire, acridity, and an ineffable dread. Existentialism and philosophy are at once invoked and absorbed into a once beguiling, simplistic cartoon world.
Contorting the classic perspective on a beloved cartoon character, Untitled depicts solely the head of Snoopy, from Charles M. Schultz’s comic strip Peanuts, frozen in an affable traipse, with ears raised in a state of euphoria. His choice of a celebrated caricature is reflective of an intent to synthesise commercialisation and artistic esotericism into an oeuvre completely irreverent of the modalities of both. As Carlo McCormick attested in reference to his dogma, “..Neither a fine artist who does commercial work nor a commercial artist who does fine art, KAWS is decidedly both at once and emphatically neither as he refuses to parse those distinctions of high and low” (Carlos Mccormick, “KAWS’ World: From the Street to TV to FINE Art Galleries, KAWS Is Everywhere,” Paper, November 4, 2013.)
By draping this distinct character in his signature marks and tones, KAWS manipulates the ubiquity of a classic icon while deconstructing its inherent symbolicness- in favor of a new visual metaphor. Epitomising this clash of the mainstream with the philosophy of aesthetics are his quintessential hallmarks: the signature “X” that takes the place of Snoopy’s eyes. The icon’s persona, built upon its homogenous recognisability within pop culture, has been stripped in an act of pure Dadaism. This satire is not only provocative of disillusionment with our relationship with art, but calls the parameters of what constitutes artistic recognition into question. Furthering the depth of the image is his signature application of a stark, nearly psychological shift in crisp hues: the background of the canvas, awash in a picturesque azure, strikes the viewer in a syncopated manner when regarded as adjacent to the sharp tones of the figure’s perceivable body in the foreground. Snoopy, largely draped in a muted blue, is visually denoted as separate from its environs- which is further delineated by a white outline representative of palpable tension. Complicating this engagement is the lack of an outline on the image itself, saturating the surface while pushing it forward in an act of quasi-impasto. This dynamic is suggestive of the painting sharing the same objectivity as the surrounding space. Once recognised, viewers are rendered intimately involved in this space that KAWS has constructed, where his cartoon is trapped in a youthful stasis- free of literal adulteration.
Brian Donnelly, the artist behind KAWS, was born in Jersey City, New Jersey in 1974. Showing a burgeoning interest in illustration early on led him to a BFA in Illustration from the School of Visual Art, and a subsequent animating position at Disney. KAWS soon turned to the underbelly of the New York art scene and positioned his oeuvre in the streets, in front of the urban masses. Wanting to “work within the language of an ad”, KAWS utilised this position to glean familiarity early on within the realm of mass culture (the artist, cited in Andrea Karne, “KAWS: Where the End Starts”, 2017, p. 27). Equipped with a nascent wit, and a proclivity for exploring themes of commercialism, artistic iconoclasy, and the ephemerality of youth, the visual culture of KAWS continues to disrupt the pedagogy of avant-garde and kitsch. By perverting familiar elements of pop-culture, philistine imagery is recast in a broader, complex aesthetic. Untitled is a quintessential example of this habitual, career-long, creative introspection on aging and the permeance of the youthful figure. By besmirching the sterility of cherished symbolism, KAWS has successfully disturbed our perception of these cultural constants by bequeathing them with sentimental capability recognised on a global scale.
