KAWS · Just do it All

[Music] the name cause just comes from when i started doing graffiti and you know i was thinking of lettering and kaws are four letters that i like and the way they interact with each other and then later i just chose to keep it i mean the work i make now has you know pretty much nothing to do with the graffiti i was doing but i think we're keeping a name cause you just have to work and that's it and you have to you know think about everything from there [Applause] you know i started going to japan in the mid 90s and i met a lot of interesting young guys who are super ambitious and creative and they were very much involved in like street wear and fashion and so they had their companies and slowly those have grown and i was doing collaborations with these different companies that i liked like you know supreme or bathing ape garcon and slowly i kind of worked with everyone i wanted to so the next logical step seemed to be open a shop i think you know when i was younger like probably a lot to do with skating and sort of the products that came along with that like t-shirts and you know stickers and boards and graphics and um i just love that that kind of thing and you know as a kid for me that really kind of got my mind open it wasn't going to galleries and museums you know that world was like a different world that i knew existed but i hardly touched so it was mostly magazines and objects and things actually i should tell you when i started original fake my the store in tokyo is part of the reason why i started that store is to design the shop with with karayama because i just loved his you know my first trips to japan going to hit spaces and seeing all the retail stores that he's done and then becoming friends and he's just one of the best people i've met in japan so i really just started the store as a way of building this doing this collaborative space with him and then i was like oh i have a store and now i have to make product you know i was always interested in sculpture and then um making a toy was sort of like an accessible way of doing that you know i never kind of imagined that i'd have an opportunity to make large pieces or like you know life-size or larger so instead of doing the monumental piece i went for the addition so i made 500 instead of making one big one and that kind of opened you know i kind of control the production and the sales and once i made one and got the sales from that i can make two and then from there i can make six and then i you know and then just sort of over the last i don't know 14 so years kind of developed into where i'm at now when i open my store i kind of i kind of was like oh forget art world forget galleries because you know a lot of times i was making these paintings but i also you know very interested in making product and in the 90s there was a sort of a taboo between oh this is commercial you can either be a fine artist we could be a commercial artist so i just was like oh forget it you know i'll just do what i like to do and kind of let the chips fall where they do and then slowly the climate's changed and things have sort of opened up all along i have had some opportunities to exhibit but never really anything until like maybe 2008 was when the first exhibit in new york happen again and then from there it's kind of like opportunities have snowballed [Music] um the sculptures at mary boone are based off a character companion that i started you know in the late 90s when i did my first toy and he sort of come through many different formations and i don't know i would say that maybe the sort of the sculptures that mary's are more about like maybe the human condition and sort of just this despair it's like these characters but they're kind of they have human emotions i mean scale scale is another tool it's another thing it's just like a the medium you choose to work in you know the scale you choose to work you know i spent so much time making these sort of small works and then you know you take the same work that you're making small and you shift the scale and then suddenly you change the dynamic between the viewer and the work so you know whereas like something somebody could hold something in their hand at one point this can probably now hold you so it's you know i think it's interesting to change the scale a lot these sculptures are in wood um i had made some smaller wood sculptures like around 2005 and then again in 2010 and then we figured out how to make you know these monumental ones and so suddenly there's this you know sculpture that's the size of a building and you know you need engineers to work with you on it and weighs 14 tons i mean companion is a character that i've reworked through many formations when he was in the macy's parade it was just sort of taking something that i've been working with for you know a decade now and sort of putting it as the first time i made a balloon and to see it sort of in the context of macy's which i grew up watching you know being in such close proximity you just see this parade when you're little and it's also in a lineup with all the characters i grew up on it was sort of a surreal you know environment like i wouldn't make a balloon just to make a balloon like to to make a balloon and have it in that context was the perfect outlet i thought there's really no difference between the two worlds you know it's just making work it's making paintings you know i never really when i was doing graffiti i never considered myself like a graffiti artist you know at the same time i was doing that i was in college i was doing realist oil painting and looking at like boogerel and sergeant and jerome and so it's you know i was always interested in all kinds of art i never really kind of pigeonholed myself into one focal point and now when i work you know it's i work sort of graphic and a cartoon style but what i'm thinking about is everything just do it all i mean just try to do you know do what interests you you know there's some times where i feel like i want to make you know make a toy and you know i love the way things you know there's i can meet young kids or they can walk into a show and they're already they're already well versed in the work they already had you know toys on their shelves for 10 years and it's just i think it's an amazing way of sort of reaching people and you know existing on a sort of accessible level

Channel: Out of Sync - Art in Focus

Views: 5,775

Rating: 4.8290596 out of 5

Keywords: KAWS, Commercial Art, Design, Companion, Graffiti, Graffiti Art, Brian Donnelly

Id: rLmeED8f12E

Length: 7min 25sec (445 seconds)

Published: Wed May 13 2020