Beschreibung:

Property of a Distinguished Collector37KAWSHARD FEELINGSeach signed and dated 'KAWS..10' on the reverse acrylic on canvas, in 2 parts left part 213.4 x 91.4 cm (84 x 36 in.) right part 213.4 x 30.5 cm (84 x 12 in.) Painted in 2010. Full CataloguingEstimate £580,000 - 750,000 ‡ Place Advance BidContact Specialist Kate Bryan Specialist, Head of Evening Sale +44 20 7318 4026 kbryan@phillips.com
Overview'KAWS is not just referring to pop culture, he is making it.' —Michael Auping AupingKAWS’ painterly method can be likened to a process of defamiliarisation. Appropriating the aesthetic of world-famous symbols and cartoon characters and subsequently transforming them into unusual, disembodied forms, the artist taps into the viewer’s childhood memories whilst simultaneously challenging them – in fine eliciting ambivalent feelings, or perhaps what the present canvas has eponymously identified as Hard Feelings. Hard Feelings, executed in 2010, presents the infamous cartoon character SpongeBob Square Pants – a recurring inspiration within KAWS’ body of work – in mutilated, fragmented, and variously altered forms, devised across three unevenly sized canvases. While some attributes are undoubtedly recognisable as SpongeBob Square Pants’ (the pineapple-yellow complexion, the baby-blue eyes), others are proper to KAWS’ individually developed lexicon (the slender ‘X’ mark running over the character’s pupil, the grimacing frown). The composition is assuredly figurative in zoomed-in areas, yet as a whole, the image veers towards abstraction. Indeed, the horizontal and vertical lines separating the various shots capturing the protagonist’s evolving expressions serve as tools to enhance the composition’s abstract nature. Seen from this angle, Hard Feelings recalls the myriad minimalist creations that equally sought to contain colour and shape within different geometric planes. With its bright hues and dynamic geometric construction, Hard Feelings namely echoes Frank Stella’s Abra Variation I, 1969, currently residing at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Frank Stella Abra Variation I, 1969, fluorescent alkyd on canvas, Museum of Modern Art, New York. © Frank Stella ARS, NY and DACS 2020. Image: 2020, The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Florence. Since deciding to commit himself to creating perennial art in the form of painting and sculpture – a progression from his early forays into graffiti in his native New Jersey – KAWS has never ceased bridging the worlds of high art and consumer culture. Continuing to nourish his creativity by embarking on partnerships with important retailers, both in the realms of luxury and mass-market, KAWS has, at the same time, been producing lasting physical evidence of his craft, taking the time to focus on the traditional artistic genres that have defined the art historical canon. With Hard Feelings, the artist demonstrates the scope of his creative capacities, melding pictorial prowess and a distinctly recognisable pop reference. Devised on a larger-than-life scale, the work resembles a polished, bright-hued billboard that inherently recalls KAWS’ early artistic ventures in the streets of New York and New Jersey. Capturing his career development, from when he first spray-painted existing images with his four-letter moniker, to when he obtained his first museum show at the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art in 2010, Hard Feelings is an excellent example of the artist’s elevated painterly skill, with each detail of the character’s face betraying his subtly varying expressions. KAWS’ Art Historical Inspirations KAWS’s desire to level the hierarchy between high and low art is not without art historical precedence. Indeed, a number of artists similarly delved into the potential residing in the everyday – specifically in contemporary times, as a response to the increased reproduction of images, nearing worldwide ubiquity. The Pictures Generation namely delved into the surface appearance of what surrounded them to deliver underlying truths. Richard Prince for instance, took a familiar distinctly American image – the cowboy, the nurse – and recontextualised it in a subversive way, adjoining eerie associations to a harmless archetype. Similarly, Hard Feelings transforms a familiar image into a nightmarish tableau: it is as if the cozy, innocuous character of SpongeBob were portrayed in a broken mirro