WHAT PARTY? KAWS PARTY!

If you, like me, enjoy walking around New York City, you might have noticed them too. Sometime in the fall a set of familiar larger than life characters started appearing in the streets. The Michelin-man-like puffed up black and shiny CHUM caught my attention first. It is perfectly positioned against the stark geometry of Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram building. Whoever placed it there is a genius - the building, impressive on its own, provides a spectacular glowing backdrop at night.

Just a few blocks down on Park Avenue, the Pepto-Bismol pink BFF popped up. This one is more playfully located inside a glass and marble lobby. There, it can loom over visitors and “pose” for pictures during the day (judging from instagram feed, it is quite popular) and playfully peek out of its glass and steel “cage” after hours. It’s practically irresistible.

Turns out, there is more to their recent appearance than a simple public art placement effort. These familiar characters gave us a preview, a taste, of the show that has just opened at the Brooklyn Art Museum.

BROOKLYN ART MUSEUM: WHAT PARTY

The latest show, “What Party”, summarizes over a hundred KAWS works, from graffiti drawings and notebooks, paintings and sculptures, to smaller collectibles, furniture, and monumental installations of his popular COMPANION figures. It also features new pieces made uniquely for the exhibition along with his early-career altered advertisements. Read more about the show here.

BRIAN DONNELLY, AKA KAWS

Kaws has come a long way since his beginnings as a street artist in New Jersey and NYC. Always straddling the art and commercial line, his characters with X-ed out eyes and exaggerated skull and bone structure have become iconic. His art comes big and small - from collectible toys barely a few inches high to some of the largest sculptures to stand (or float, as was the case of the Companion in the Hong Kong Harbor) on the Earth. And he continues to evolve. More recently, he’s jumped into the digital space, teaming up with Acute Art, an augmented reality digital art platform that allows you to virtually explore his sculptures and create personalized experiences through an app on your smart phone.

His commercial success is pretty impressive, too. The toys based on his characters continue to sell out and command pretty hefty premiums on the secondary market and serious art buyers are now scooping up his work in droves. KAWS continuously breaks auction house records and in 2019 his works sold for $112 million. Earlier in the year, the Art Angle podcast predicted that i this year’s auctions, KAWS will outsell every old master other than Sandro Botticelli.

If you still want to learn more about KAWS, here and here are a couple of articles you might like.

A FIERCE GIRL FOR THE GRITTY STREETS OF NEW YORK CITY

New York City has never been for the faint of heart. Almost a year into the pandemic, the city has slowly returned to its grittier past as restaurants shutter and store windows go dark. With Broadway on a hiatus for a few more months, it would be easy to write the city off as an uninhabitable urban jungle. Many have left, escaping for warmer climates or more peaceful rural settings. Those of us who stay are finding joy in the little gems that are still here, ready to be discovered if only you try just a little bit harder. Enter @phoebenewyork, a smart, fierce, funny and kind girl that will capture your heart. Let her be your witty guide around this city of ours.

CAN YOU FIND HER? WHO IS SHE?

“Something good is worth finding.” I didn’t write that. Phoebe did. It was one the first stickers I noticed walking around in Soho a few years ago. Subtly but decisively claiming her spot on a busy street corner, Phoebe was a cute collage character with piercing eyes that pull you in and a clear voice that speaks her mind. As I always do when I find something intriguing, I snapped a picture and made a mental note to find out more about this instantly recognizable little figure.

I didn’t get around to it, but a couple weeks later I noticed the feisty character on a lamp post, this time in Chelsea. And another, different one a few blocks away. Just as witty, just as cute. Now I was hooked. A veritable treasure hunt in New York City! Can I find another? How many are there? Who creates them? What will the next one say? Phoebe and I made an acquaintance and now it was up to me to stay connected.

And so I did. Whenever my meetings or walks took me downtown, I kept my eyes peeled: Is this a promising street corner? That bus stop looks like a perfect location! She who searches shall find. I started meeting more Phoebes everywhere and discovered that my new friend stays on top of what’s happening around us and has a clear point of view, one that she’s not shy to voice. She knows she’s worth it and will do her best to encourage you to feel that way, too. She’s real, too. There are days when she’s “too much” and she owns it.

PHOEBE’S ‘MOM’

The more I saw Phoebe, the more curious I became about the artist behind the character. Clearly, this is someone very creative who has a great sense of humor and humanity. I’ve connected with “Phoebe” on instagram and quickly realized that there is a nice person behind her.

Having now met in person, I can confirm it is absolutely true. Libby, Phoebe’s creator, is a warm, nice, gentle and fun human. Originally from Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, Libby now lives and creates her collages in a West Village studio using found objects, including vintage photographs, magazine pages, old books, record covers - objects that have lived an “imperfect life.”

A committed New Yorker, she came up with the idea of Phoebe while honing her photography skills in Paris. Yes, you read that right. This quintessential New York character was born in Paris! As Libby told me she first started experimenting with layered collage character then. At first, Phoebe was a much more simplified figure, usually shown in profile. But that wasn’t enough for our girl and so Libby evolved her and now Phoebe engages you with a direct glance, an active pose, dark and witty observations and, at times, raw emotions. Just like her “Mom.” And New York City is richer for it.

Check them out on Phoebe’s instagram or Libby’s own art site. You will be glad you did. We all need a little Phoebe in our lives.

ART IN NEW YORK CITY: MOMA AND THE STREAMLINED WORLD OF DONALD JUDD

When a pandemic grounds you in New York, you adapt and explore more art locally. So, while we wait for the lockdowns and vaccines to start working their magic and returning us to normalcy, expect to see more local art stories here. First up, MoMA’s recent show on Donald Judd.

MoMA IS ALWAYS A GOOD IDEA

Museum of Modern Art is one of my favorite museums in New York both for the clean lines of its architecture and the amazing richness of the art inside.

MoMA’s sixth-floor special exhibit space

The building itself is worth a visit. I loved the 2004 design by Japan’s Yoshio Taniguchi. The Keio University and Harvard School of Design-educated Taniguchi got his training working with the likes of Walter Gropius and Kenzo Tange, one of the prominent modernist architects in Japan, and, later on, Isamu Noguchi. After opening his own studio, he became known for museum projects, including the Nagano Prefectural Museum, the Marugame Genichiro Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art, the Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, and the Gallery of the Hōryū-ji Treasures at the Tokyo National Museum. In 1997, Taniguchi won a competition to redesign the Museum of Modern Art, beating out several architecture powerhouses such as Rem Koolhaas, Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron. MoMA, his first project outside Japan, let the artwork breathe by expanding the exhibition space, adding skylights to the galleries and offering visitors lots of unexpected lookout points that allowed them to experience the art and the space in a new light.

In 2019, MoMA morphed again, this time based on the work of Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Gensler. The renovated space includes an additional 165,000 square feet of gallery space and it is to the architects’ credit that the design, in many ways, disappears in favor of a seamless experience, letting guests focus on the art without noticing that they are moving between multiple buildings. The expanded space gives MoMA the ability to showcase a much broader range of art and visitors have a chance to learn about a more diverse set of artists.

In the summer, grab a book and ice cream and enjoy the outdoor sculpture garden. It is lovely.

DONALD JUDD’S STREAMLINED ART

Donald Judd, MoMA 2020

Earlier this year, MoMA put on an extensive show of Donald Judd’s streamlined, minimalist (a term that he himself avoided) sculptural work. Judd, one of the best known sculptors of modern time, made his fame through innovative use of industrial materials, production approaches and use of color and surface that let audiences experience his work in new and different ways.

Judd started his art career as a painter but quickly moved from figurative to abstract work and by the early 1960s, was concentrating on straight lines and angles. By 1963 he had moved on to forms — ‘stacks’, ‘boxes’ and ‘progressions’ — that he would become known for over the next thirty years. His use of simple, often repeated forms and everyday materials such as metals, plywood or plexiglass lent itself to exploration of use of space.

The MoMA exhibition showcased the full evolution of Judd’s work and, in what turned out to be a silver lining of the pandemic, due to the socially distanced crowds, allowed you to really engage with the art at your own pace.

Donald Judd, MoMA 2020

Although the show itself has now closed, you can still see one of Judd’s pieces in the outdoor sculpture garden. Those who are willing to explore further afield can venture out to Dia:Beacon that has a long-term exhibition of his plywood work or take a road trip to Marfa, Texas and the Chinati Foundation where the permanent collection includes many large-scale works by Judd and his contemporaries such as Dan Flavin, Robert Irwin and John Chamberlain. Marfa is on my list and when we can travel again, expect a post about it here as well. For now, you can also explore Judd’s work through one of the books showcasing his work.