Banksy
KAWs
Ron English
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CONTENTS
In This Issue... Kaws ............................... 4–5 Banksy ............................ 7–8 Ron English ....................... 10
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his segment profiles the artist known as KAWS former graffiti (tag) artist turned painter and designer of limited edition toys and clothing. Segment also features some cool clips of KAWS artistic vision and Kanye West’s latest album cover and billboards. “I just started simply through graffiti and drawing on my skateboard and painting on walls and getting that small recognition,” said KAWS, known to his family as Brian Donnelly.
HISTORY Graduated from the school of Visual Arts in New York with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in illustration in 1996. After graduation, KAWS briefly worked for Disney as a freelance animator painting backgrounds. The Brooklyn based artist KAWS’ who techniques acts as a sieve of modern culture, filtering and re-contextualizing the images and information that he comes in contact with daily. Process is all encompassing,
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embracing popular culture and the visual landscape, which is familiar. The work can be thought of as an overarching brand, however it is also immediate and organic. This energetic immediacy can be felt in the selection of work that he presents. KAWS roots began as a graffiti artist in the early 1990’s and since then he has built an identity that had it’s genesis in guerilla imagery added to billboards and bus shelters. He converts familiar visuals into affronting works of art. Through his company Original Fake he has released limited edition works. He has also collaborated on design projects with Commes Des Garoons, Marc Jacobs, and A Bathing Ape. In the past recently worked with Kanye West to create the cover art for Kanye’s past album. This reworking of popular culture has grown KAWS into a multifaceted, multi-pronged endeavor that has ventured into the realm of contemporary art. KAWS situates himself at the crossroads of media and art; a vanguard in the new frontier of
the 21st century artistic discourse. Channeling the commercialist attitude of Claes Oldenburg and, more recently, Takashi Murakami, KAWS has produced everything from x-marked sneakers for Nike to an album cover for a special edition of Kanye West’s 808s & Heartbreak (2008). To sell all the KAWS-mobilia, the artist opened a dazzling Masamichi Katayama– designed store in Tokyo in 2006 called OriginalFake.
CREATIONS New large paintings included in which feature his usual cross-section of familiar cultural icons painted with precise execution. The resulting pieces feature the trademark graphic quality inherent in his work. What first caught my attention about KAWS is that he does not really find a strict boundary between art, design, and architecture. I believe all disciplines would benefit from feeding from each other, which would be a more natural and organic way of not only making new work but
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experiencing it as well. In my mind, it is important is to have a creative vision that is applied to many different disciplines, activities, situations. For this graffiti artist, painter, illustrator, sculptor, toymaker, and product designer. His street-born cartoonish graphics specifically spermatozoashaped figures with x-ed out eyes have achieved a sub cultural iconography. He has applied this KAWS signature to his street art, a clothing line, heroically outsize toys and sculptures, and countless co-branding ventures with labels like A Bathing Ape and Marc Jacobs. Although KAWS does not separate product from art or art from product, it was only a matter of time before the art world caught up with him. Not to follow the traditional route to fineart career but instead chose to cut his own
path. Stepping away from graffiti along the terms writing his name on walls KAWS began altering ads. One of his graffiti mates now also turned successful pop artist gave KAWS this skeleton key which opened up the new found drive where he began unlocking the glass panel encasings of bus stop and phone booth ads. He stole the posters, added his own graphics to them in acrylic paint, his trade mark X-ed out eye’s and serpentine like cartoon character called “KAWS Bendy” and then surreptitiously carefully put them back. These hits were so skillfully executed brushstrokes are never apparent in a KAWS painting that often no one could distinguish the artist’s work from the original advertisement. The series and the variation of minimal elements in a composition, repeating a character over and over again, is part of pop art tradition. Through repetition Andy Warhol transformed the banal image of a Campbell’s soup can into a relevant one.
Lee, Chris (February 21, 2009 ). Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/arts/ la-et-kaws21-2009feb21,0,1190088.story The Installation of KAWS Long Way Home at Honor Fraser (2/21/09-4/4/09). The kick it spot. Retrieved May 12 2011 from http://www.thekickitspot. com/2009/02/kawsh/ Images of KAWS, from http://www.google.co.nz/ search?client=safari&rls=en&q=KAWS&oe=UTF8&redir_esc=&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source= og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1234&bih=620 All things KAWS, Retrieved from http://fuckyeakaws. tumblr.com/
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“We can’t do anything to change the world until capitalism crumbles. In the meantime we should all go shopping to console ourselves.”
I
f you live in or around London/Bristol, you would have been personally familiar with the work of graffiti artist Banksy for some time now. If you have never personally experienced his work, no doubt you will have heard about it or at least seen pictures of it. He has even taken his art around the world. To some, Banksy is thought to be a breathof-fresh-air-genius, to others a threat-to-socialfabric-vandal. Where ever you fall, there is no doubt his work is always controversial. He provokes outrage and he inspires in equal measure. Banksy – the pseudonym of a wellknown English based graffiti artist, painter, film-director and political activist has become
quite the celebrity (albeit avoiding celebrity status by keeping his identity shrouded in mystery). His street art is satirical, subversive and poignant and he manages to combine dark humour with a political and social commentary. His art appears in public spaces and he has even completed works on the barrier wall which separates Israelis and Palestinians. He is also well known for his controversial headlinemaking stunts, such as leaving an inflatable doll dressed as a Guantanamo prisoner in Disneyland, California, and hanging a version of the Mona Lisa – but with a smiling face – in the Louvre, Paris. But perhaps his most provocative statement, and the one that generates the most publicity, is the fact that Banksy’s true identity has always been
a highly guarded secret, known to only a handful of trusted friends. A series of myths has grown around him. One being that his real name is Robin Banks. Another being that he used to be a butcher. Also, that his parents don’t know what he does, believing him to be an unusually successful painter, decorator and labourer. Then there’s the suggestion that Banksy is actually a collection of artists which belong to a very secretive artist-guerrilla-society and that the individual man doesn’t exist at all. Of course there are suspicions about his true identity and certain investigative reporters claim to have uncovered his identity, but the truth is, there is still no real conformation… and I kind of like it that way. I think of Banksy as the last Santa Claus/ Tooth Fairy/Easter Bunny for grown ups – why ruin the illusion. Whenever I go into London, I look for evidence of his presence and every now and
again I have gotten it! Banksy has characterised graffiti as a form of underclass ‘revenge‘, or ‘guerilla warfare‘ that allows the individual to snatch away power and glory from a bigger and better equipped enemy. His work has also shown a desire to mock centralised power. He demonstrates, through his art, that although power does exist it is not terribly efficient and it can and should be deceived. Banksy’s work deals with an array of social themes including war, social class, capitalism, fascism and existentialism, to name but a few. He also provides a commentary on the human fallacies, such as greed, poverty and alienation. He subverts tradition and plays with contrast. I think it’s pretty clear that I’m a fan! I can’t help but feel he’s the Andy Warhol of our time (with our obsession with his works and messages but without the excessive fame). Through a telephone interview Banksy once told a magazin
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“I have no interest in ever coming out. I figure there are enough self-opinionated assholes trying to get their ugly little faces in front of you as it is.� http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2003/jul/17/art.artsfeatures
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“A g o o d a r t i s t l o o k s fo r inspira tion. A grea t ar tist is inspira tion.” It’s extremely difficult to find Art these days unless you know where to look. You’d probably go through hours of research in order to find an artist you could actually share a connection with and then buy a piece of art that you’d truly admire. I personally enjoy looking for artists that I know will reward me in my efforts with great artwork but sometimes the Artist isn’t too difficult to find because of the things they have painted or for their beliefs and style. What can I say about Ron English that hasn’t been said before!? God’s knows. All I know is that I have lots of respects and admiration for his guts and creative force which never seems to slow down but only accelerate. Working for many years, making fantastic mind blowing artworks and displaying on the street while fighting against mainstream media and commercial manipulation, all hail the king Ron. An American contemporary artist who explores popular brand imagery and advertising. His signature style employs a mash-up of high and low cultural touchstones, including comic superhero mythology and totems of art history, to create a visual language of evolution. He is also widely considered a seminal figure in the advancement of street art away from traditional wild-style lettering and into clever statement and masterful trompe l’oeil based art. He has created illegal murals and billboards that blend stunning visuals with biting political, consumerist and surrealist statements, hijacking public space worldwide for the sake of art since the 1980s.
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Ron English has a unique style, which is hard to come by. I know for a fact that the work of Ron English isn’t everybody’s cup of tea and that’s part of the uproar that has followed his work, but that comes with every artist in some way. If you were to flick through a small amount of paintings by English you’d most certainly see something you wouldn’t agree with but that’s exactly what makes it Art and that’s exactly what makes you keep looking.I hope you enjoy what he has to say in this wonderfully answered interview. “A good artist looks for inspiration. A great artist is inspiration.” When did it all start for you as an artist? I have no memories of not being an artist. My original approach to the world was through the prism of being an artist. If I dug a hole it was an “earth work”. At the age of 8 I sold a painting of St. Basel’s Cathedral at an art fair. A college professor bought it to torment his students with the accomplished oil painting of an 8 year old. Do you like how art has evolved in the past 10 years? When I ended a series about my kids (they started feeling uncomfortable about their “fame”, you know, random people running up to them saying, “Look, look, I have a tattoo of you!” “No, you have a tattoo of one of my dad’s paintings”, I had to come up with something new that wouldn’t be so disruptive to my family. Then it came to me that I could find that little five year old child I once was in my subconscious and gift him with the technical abilities of a 50 year old painter. I still remember my ideas in my
head that I could not seem to accomplish with my tempera paint and five year old hands. That was pretty much the attitude behind the work I have produced over the last few years. Last of all, what should we expect from you in the near future?
The culmination of the new concept will come together this October at Corey Helford Gallery in LA. If you’re in the area, please check it out. If not there will be a new book out this spring, a store in Soho in December and a new clothing line this fall.
http://cfye.com/ron-english-7806
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