KAWS | UNTITLED, 2021

KAWS’ work, UNTITLED, 2021 is the fruit of an invitation by curators Paris Murray Celant and Dr. Cornelia Lauf, dating to 2016, when they met with KAWS to select a potential work to be translated into production. The original painting is a vibrant and joyful work, with dozens of richly hued colors, many of them fluorescent. In many ways, its seamless production in acrylic on canvas is the absolute antithesis of the medium for which it was destined. However, it was this very tension that the curators desired—a challenge to the notion of the industrial readymade, and a leap forward, to valorize and preserve artisanal practices in the virtual and industrial contemporary moment.