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KAWS in Dialogue: Karl Wirsum & Tomoo Gokita

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KAWS in Dialogue: Karl Wirsum & Tomoo Gokita KAWS in Dialogue: Karl Wirsum & Tomoo Gokita Brooklyn-based artists Brian Donnelly, a.k.a. KAWS (1974- ), has created an astute and prolific body of work that includes graffiti writings, street art, graphic and product design, limited toy editions, paintings, murals, and large-scale sculptures. He is considered one of the most relevant artists of his generation: a savvy tastemaker, sharp businessman, and most recently, an important collector. This exhibition presents works by KAWS alongside pieces, selected from his personal collection, by two seemingly unrelated artists: Karl Wirsum and Tomoo Gokita. Born in Japan (1969-), Gokita lives near Tokyo in the idyllic suburb of Chōfu. A life-long resident of Chicago, Wirsum (1939-) was part of the 1966 Hairy Who exhibition that included Jim Nutt amongst others.1 Since 1972, this group has been known as the Chicago Imagists and are recognized for their “irreverence, over-the-top antics, and sometimes gross impoliteness always is given form with the greatest craftsmanship.”2 Wirsum’s work is known for his exuberant, brightly colored idiosyncratic figures composed with expressionist and cartoonish lines, while Gokita creates sleek and enigmatic monochromatic faceless portraits. KAWS, however, sees commonalities to which he relates, evidenced not only by collecting their work, but also by showing it next to his.3 Artists, like KAWS, who collect art as a practice is a somewhat habitual operation. The Chicago Imagists, for example, did so decades earlier. Their practice may be traced to the teachings of Ray Yoshida, a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), who encouraged his students, including many of the Imagists, to actively and deliberately collect.4 Yoshida’s former student Jim Nutt (whose works KAWS also owns) recalled that Yoshida’s collecting strategy “allowed all sorts of things to enter his [Yoshida’s] mind and, as a result, he was constantly having discoveries.”5 By surrounding themselves with works they deem interesting, inspirational, celebratory, critical, conflicting, or problematic, artists create a fertile ground of possibilities where they may engage their own creativity. This collection-based methodology, however, is highly subjective. French cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard explains that the objects with which we surround ourselves arouse passion: 1 The Hairy Who included Art Green, Gladys Nilsson, James Falcone, Jim Falconer, and Suellen Rocca. When discussing the yet unnamed exhibition, the artists found themselves referring to Harry Bouras, a local radio critic who reviewed artists and exhibitions. When Karl Wirsum asked “Harry Who?” the group found their title. Lynne Warren, “Chicago Imagism: The Derivation of a Term,” Chicago Imagists (Chicago: Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, 2011), 19. 2 Richard H. Axsom, “L.A. Spap / Chicago Crackle / New York Pop,” in Ibid, 44. 3 KAWS collection includes works by H.C. Westermann (who attended the SAIC a generation before the Chicago Imagists) and Peter Saul (who showed at Chicago’s Allan Frumkin Gallery often attended by the Chicago Imagists and for which KAWS has special fondness) and art world darlings like Crumb, Keith Harring, Richard Prince, Jeff Koons, Gary Panther, Raymond Pettibon, Mike Kelly, Erik Parker, and Todd James, plus leading Japanese artists Keiichi Tanaami, Takashi Murakami, and Kaz Oshiro. Among the various meanings of the French word object, the Littré dictionary gives this: “Anything which is the cause or subject of a passion. Figuratively and most typically: the loved object.”6 Baudrillard further notes that the collector sees his (or herself) expressed in the collected objects. Categorizing, gathering, disposing, (we will add) displaying one’s collection, he suggests, is like playing with a mirror constructed of throw back images not of the real but of the desirable. These objects emerge as the ideal reflecting mechanism resulting in a play where “the image of the self is extended to the very limits of the collection…For it is invariably oneself that one collects.”7 We could therefore consider that KAWS sees the works of Wirsum and Gokita as an extension of his own identity. Furthermore, by displaying his own work next to theirs in this exhibition, he reinforces the notion that the works affirm each other and ultimately, him. Indeed Baudrillard argues that all objects in a collection “constitute themselves as a system, on the basis of which the subject seeks to piece together his world, his personal microcosm.”8 Hence, the exhibition presents itself not only as a comparative exercise but as a world of its own, much like a cabinet of curiosities. And as Baudrillard would have it, “curiosity can be the most extravagant of passions.”9 KAWS has a passion for popular culture, whether in art, design, architecture, or fashion. He grew up in New Jersey watching cartoons, playing with Smurf toys, skateboarding, and ultimately (spray) painting. He furthered his passions by studying illustration at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in Manhattan in the early 1990s. By then he was already well versed in graffiti, having prolifically tagged walls and freight trains with the letters K A W S. He soon targeted other highly visible locations such as billboards and bus shelters advertising everything from name brands like DKNY and Guess to beverages whether alcohol or milk.10 His interventions were comprised mainly of a serpentine figure wrapped around the body of sexy models; and they had a particular blend of bravura and humor. Indeed, humor is part of KAWS’ interest in Karl Wirsum’s work and the Chicago Imagists as a whole. Speaking about this group of artists, curator Lynn Warren noted that “rarely has an entire movement shown so many aspects of comedy.” She added, however, that “not all ‘funnies’ are funny.” For her, Wirsum’s work in particular seems “the most jokey, playful, and animated by puns, irony, visual gags, and general high spirits.”11 Chicago Imagists looked at their urban, gritty environment, as well as popular culture, comic books, toys, folk and non-Western art, and surrealism for inspiration. Wirsum specifically was influenced by some of the era’s most iconoclastic musicians—such as 6 Jean Baudrillard, “The System of Collecting”, in The Cultures of Collecting, eds. John Elsner and Roger Cardinal (Massachusetts: Harvard Univ. Press, 1994), 7 7 Baudrillard, p. 10-12 8 Ibid, p. 7 9 Ibid, p. 12 10 Having gained access to a tool that opened the shelter boxes, he would take the printed posters back to his studio, integrate his work seamlessly into the mass-produced images, and then return them to their original location. 11 Warren, “Jest Digestion: [Truly Awful] Puns, [Genitalia] Jokes, and [Caustic] Wit in Chicago Imagists”, in Chicago Imagists, 137,139 Screamin’ Jay Hawkins—known for controversial, highly sexualized songs, and by Chicago’s diverse communities.12 With wit and an expressive use of cartoonish, dynamic lines, dots, flat surfaces, and eclectic colors, Wirsum creates nearly abstracted hybridized figures that border on the grotesque. The works’ strong graphic nature and humor helps to mitigate the contrarian, sometimes vulgar, attitudes found in his and his fellow Chicago Imagists’ artworks. A 1966 review of The Hairy Who exhibition where Wirsum first received critical attention observed, “It’s mad, it’s monstrous, it’s how a group [the Hairy Who] of Midwestern individuals rejected the Paris, New York or West Coast model to form a school that is distinctly its own.”13 Artistic irreverence and incitement to visceral reactions are exactly the attitudes that resonate with KAWS. During college, KAWS continued developing his own vocabulary adding to his repertoire a cartoonish soft skull with crossbones and crossed-out eyes, soon to become one of his signature gestures. After college, he worked as a freelancer for the animations studio Jumbo, later purchased by Disney. This experience further influenced his vocabulary and technique. For example, he started using cell paint, typically used in animation for its opacity, to create flat surfaces for his posters. Moreover, the work catalyzed his appropriation of iconic characters from popular culture and comic books such as Mickey Mouse, the Michelin Man, Snoopy, Garfield, the Smurfs, and the Simpsons, to which he added his inflated skull and crossbones. KAWS’ skull and crossbones stemmed from its universality and accessibility, everyone recognizes a skull and crossbones, and associations with death as well, underscoring the notion that “not all ‘funnies’ are funny.” By inserting his skulls into mass marketing campaigns or popular culture figures, KAWS withstands commodification as well as established artistic conventions that consider resistant positions as “mad and monstrous.” Viewers commonly have a visceral reaction to the work of Wirsum and KAWS. Both resort to humor, moody characters, and hybridized figures, such as KAWS’ Companion (fig. x) or Wirsum’s Craned Mutiny at the Cantilever Cannery and Yodel Me Back to Orville Overhaul (figs x, x). Furthermore, KAWS appropriates beloved pop- culture characters, whether Mickey Mouse or Homer Simpson, and “takes them down”14 with the addition of his skull. KAWS’ first Companion from 199915 was a toy edition produced in Japan, two years after his first trip to the country. There he became acquainted with designers for clothing labels such as HECTIC, and *A Bathing Ape, Bounty Hunter, and Neighborhood, known for their high-end, impeccably crafted apparel that appeals to young
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