REBEL WITH A KAWS

Blurring the line between art and toys, KAWS has taken both worlds by storm. He spares time to talk to VIVIENNE TANG about toy sculptures, Mexican beer and his forthcoming exhibition in Hong Kong

BORN IN JERSEY CITY, the soft-spoken Brian Donnelly, known professionally as KAWS, seems rather introverted compared to his bold and thought-provoking art pieces. He’s made a name for himself by taking iconic figures, such as the Michelin Man and the Simpsons, and turning them into KAWS adaptations with his signature comic-like skull motifs and X symbols for eyes.

Your first major breakthrough took place when you started painting over billboards.
Graffiti is something I got into in the early ’90s, but more just painting letters on walls. And then I started painting pieces over billboards and advertisements.

So how did you go from paintings to toys?
I’ve always followed kind of the pop guys like [Claes] Oldenburg and [Tom] Wesselman. Making toys was just sort of a way of making my work in 3D, like the first possible outlet to make a sculpture. Instead of doing an edition of three I could do an edition of 500 .

Your work walks a very thin line between art and commercial product. Do art critics ever hold that against you?
[Laughs.] It’s fine for me if people hold that against me. In the mid-’90s I sort of found myself having to make a decision. “Do I want to make art or product?” And then I just decided that I was going to do everything that I want to make. Let the critics and curators figure out where that winds up.

Tell me about your store, OriginalFake, in Tokyo. How did you end up over there?
Some of the people I worked with years afterwards I met all on my first trip. I got to see guys like Nigo build a company right in front of my eyes. The first major collaboration was with Jun Takahashi from Undercover. The lines I did for Nigo and Takahashi really helped put me in a position in Japan where I could open my own store. And Nigo was also commissioning me for paintings.

Is that how the Kimpsons came about?
I did a series of package paintings called Kimpsons for a show, and Nigo started asking if I would be interested in doing large commissions for him. Pharrell too, he commissioned me for the Kurfs and the Family Guy painting...also Spongebob.

You’ve collaborated with some big names, such as Kanye West, Marc Jacobs and Comme Des Garçons. You’ve also just done a crossover with a Mexican beer.
It was a super fun project. The name is Dos Equis, double X. So when they approached me, I was like, “Of course, let’s do it,” aside from liking their beer. I also just released the Pinocchio with Disney, and I have Snoopy with Peanuts coming up.

What are the perks of your job?
I feel very happy that I can just realise projects and have them reach people. I never thought that I need to get like some bullshit job.

What are your challenges?
Working seven days a week [laughs], not having such a great social life. The fact that I can do something like the project with Harbour City, a five-metre-tall sculpture in Hong Kong…I can move a lot of things with that.

Often you take international icons and rework them with your symbols. Is there a deeper meaning behind your products?
Am I turning Spongebob into a sexually charged image? I just like to work with the stuff that’s around me and that I grew up with. Toy collectors are similar to art collectors. There are connoisseurs and then there are people who don’t know what they’re doing. [It’s] the same way in the art world. I see these common threads and it kind of frustrates me that they’re put in these boxes and they’re treated like different things.

How did you come up with your trademark, the skull symbol?
That was just something I painted one day on a billboard. Yeah, I guess I started using it a bunch. It’s fun for me to set myself limits and see how many different variations I can do, and how I can keep it interesting. The fact that two Xs could simplify my work is hysterical for me.

Do you feel flattered when people copy you?
For me it’s funny to be kind of a derivative of existing characters, and then people taking my derivatives and making bootlegs of them. When I did this collaboration with Bathing Ape, and they first opened in New York, suddenly all my graphics were on Canal Street. I’ve been going there since I was a little kid. You see all the fake Louis Vuitton bags. And I was like, “Oh shit! I’ve made it!” It’s funny to watch the work get remade and reach people who really don’t care.  

Passing Through, KAWS’ outdoor installation and exhibition at Harbour City, Kowloon, runs October 4–24