KAWS: What Party
For twenty-five years, Brooklyn-based artist KAWS (Brian Donnelly, American, born 1974) has bridged the worlds of art, popular culture, and commerce. Adapting the rules of cultural production and consumption in the twenty-first century, his practice both critiques and participates in consumer culture. KAWS: What Party is a sweeping survey featuring more than one hundred broad-ranging works, such as rarely seen graffiti drawings and notebooks, paintings and sculptures, smaller collectibles, furniture, and monumental installations of his popular COMPANION figures. It also features new pieces made uniquely for the exhibition along with his early-career altered advertisements.
KAWS鈥檚 practice acknowledges that works of art can occupy multiple realms鈥攖he aesthetic and the transcendent, the commodified and the priceless鈥攁nd emphasizes that even within a cultural environment shaped by image and consumption, universal emotions such as love, friendship, loneliness, and alienation remain constant. KAWS invites us to engage with his work, both in person and virtually, and explore our own relationship with and connection to objects. Teaming up with Acute Art, a digital art platform directed by acclaimed Swedish curator Daniel Birnbaum, KAWS presents new augmented reality works, allowing visitors to interact virtually with his sculptures using their smartphones to create their own experience.
Recommended for you
For twenty-five years, Brooklyn-based artist KAWS (Brian Donnelly, American, born 1974) has bridged the worlds of art, popular culture, and commerce. Adapting the rules of cultural production and consumption in the twenty-first century, his practice both critiques and participates in consumer culture. KAWS: What Party is a sweeping survey featuring more than one hundred broad-ranging works, such as rarely seen graffiti drawings and notebooks, paintings and sculptures, smaller collectibles, furniture, and monumental installations of his popular COMPANION figures. It also features new pieces made uniquely for the exhibition along with his early-career altered advertisements.
KAWS鈥檚 practice acknowledges that works of art can occupy multiple realms鈥攖he aesthetic and the transcendent, the commodified and the priceless鈥攁nd emphasizes that even within a cultural environment shaped by image and consumption, universal emotions such as love, friendship, loneliness, and alienation remain constant. KAWS invites us to engage with his work, both in person and virtually, and explore our own relationship with and connection to objects. Teaming up with Acute Art, a digital art platform directed by acclaimed Swedish curator Daniel Birnbaum, KAWS presents new augmented reality works, allowing visitors to interact virtually with his sculptures using their smartphones to create their own experience.
Artists on show
Contact details

Related articles
KAWS recently unveiled a large-scale sculpture of his new WHAT PARTY figure at K11 Art & Cultural Centre in Hong Kong.
New York鈥檚 governor Andrew Cuomo announced the opening of cultural institutions from the end of August 2020 after being closed for most of the year due to COVID-19 lockdown measures.
Synonymous as he is with Brooklyn, there is indeed something special about a hometown show for KAWS.
This February 26, the Brooklyn Museum will host a comprehensive survey exhibition spotlighting decades-spanning work by KAWS.