Full description from the venue
Space K Seoul is pleased to present FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS, the first solo institutional show in Korea by Brooklyn-based artist KAWS (Brian Donnelly, b. 1974). Beginning with graffiti and advertising interventions on the streets of New Jersey and New York in the early to mid-1990s, KAWS has built a visual language that seamlessly traverses the boundaries between fine art and popular culture, the street and the museum, and image and commodity. Spanning painting, sculpture, graphic design, product design, and public projects, his practice demonstrates how art can permeate the everyday lives of the public within contemporary visual culture. This exhibition will showcase 20 works, including new large-scale paintings and sculptures featuring the artist's iconic characters.
KAWS’s work touches upon contemporary emotions hidden beneath the surface of familiar images. His characters appear in universally recognizable forms, but behind their familiar faces lie unspoken feelings such as love and friendship, loneliness and anxiety, and a sense of alienation. While the vibrant colors, pristine surfaces, and animated gestures may seem lighthearted and cheerful, they are heavily layered with the emotional shadows and the fissures of relationships we navigate every day.
FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS reflects on the relationships situated closest to our lives. While "friends" implies a relationship we actively choose, "neighbors" describes those brought close to us by chance. Both can offer comfort and support, yet they can also generate discomfort and tension precisely because of their proximity. Through the lens of these familiar connections, KAWS reveals both the tenderness and the challenges of living with others.
Particularly notable in this exhibition are the new sculptures and paintings depicting CHUM engaged in physical conflict. Whether set against the backdrop of everyday spaces—like a fenced yard, a playground, or a bedroom in the paintings—or sharing the physical space with the audience as sculptures, the characters grapple and push against one another, creating scenes of confrontation. This marks a departure from the introspective, solitary postures and gestures of comfort and support seen in KAWS's previous characters. In these new works, the characters no longer remain isolated icons; instead, they encounter, collide, and entangle within specific settings and situations, physically manifesting the underlying tension of human relationships.
The iconography of these "clashing neighbors" mirrors the paradoxical landscape of our hyper-connected society. While we can connect with countless friends online, we still experience misunderstanding, tension, and disconnection in our relationships with those physically closest to us. KAWS’s fluid, exaggerated bodily expressions seem to temporarily blur the harsh edges of reality, but beneath the surface lies the unmistakable presence of everyday conflicts and the breakdown of communication.