KAWS Black BFF Plush (Kaws BFF plush limited edition)
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KAWSKAWS Black BFF Plush (Kaws BFF plush limited edition)2016
2016
About the Item
- Creator:KAWS (American)
- Creation Year:2016
- Dimensions:Height: 16 in (40.64 cm)Width: 13 in (33.02 cm)Depth: 2 in (5.08 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:New in its original packaging.
- Gallery Location:NEW YORK, NY
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU35433444601
KAWS
In the beginning, Brian Donnelly was just a kid from Jersey City, New Jersey, who got into the graffiti thing. KAWS was his tag, chosen simply because he liked the way it looked. Today, KAWS’s oeuvre encompasses art toys, sculptures and colorful paintings and prints that appropriate pop phenomena like the Smurfs, the Simpsons and SpongeBob SquarePants.
In the late 1990s, the artist, a 1996 graduate of New York’s School of Visual Arts, was making a living as an illustrator for the animation studio Jumbo Pictures. Like young Hansel and Gretel with their trail of crumbs, KAWS would mark the morning route to his downtown Manhattan office with “subvertising,” “interrupting” fashion advertisements by adding his colorful character Bendy, its sinuous length sliding playfully around the likes of a Calvin Klein perfume bottle or supermodel Christy Turlington.
These creations gained a following, to the point where work posted in the morning would disappear by lunchtime. Even in those early days, KAWS was hot on the resale market.
“When I was doing graffiti,” he once explained, “it meant nothing to me to make paintings if I wasn’t reaching people.” Instead of seeking entrée to the elite New York art world (which, frankly, wasn’t looking for a street artist anyway), KAWS moved to Japan, where a flourishing youth culture welcomed visionaries like him.
In 1999, he partnered with Bounty Hunter, a Japanese toy and streetwear brand, to release his first toy. Companion — an eight-inch-tall vinyl reimagining of Mickey Mouse, with a skull-and-crossbones head and trademark XX eyes — debuted with a limited run of 500. It sold out quickly.
Companion was the first of more than 130 toy designs, which came to include such characters as Chum, Blitz, Be@rbrick, BFF and Milo, each immediately recognizable as KAWS figures by their XX eyes. Fans have proved insatiable. In 2017, MoMA’s online store announced the availability of a limited supply of KAWS Companion figures; as avid collectors logged on to stake their claim, the website crashed — multiple times.
Companion is the most visible of the KAWS posse, appearing over the past decade in new postures and combinations in monumental works. These include Along the Way (2013), an 18-foot-tall wooden sculpture of two Companions leaning on each other for support; Together (2016), two Companions in a friendly embrace, which debuted during an exhibition of KAWS’s work at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, in Texas; and KAWS:HOLIDAY (2018), a 92-foot-long inflatable Companion floating on its back in Seoul’s Seokchon Lake. The sculptures were re-created as toys, blurring the lines between art and commerce.
KAWS’s visual language may be drawn from cartoons, but his work doesn’t necessarily evoke childlike joy. “My figures are not always reflecting the idealistic cartoon view that I grew up on,” he explains in the catalogue for the Fort Worth exhibition. “Companion is more real in dealing with contemporary human circumstances . . . . I think when I’m making work it also often mirrors what’s going on with me at that time.”
KAWS's résumé reads like a record of major 21st-century pop-culture moments. It includes his work with streetwear brands like A Bathing Ape and Supreme; his design for the cover of Kanye West’s 2008 album, 808s & Heartbreak; and his collaboration with designer Kim Jones on the Dior Homme Spring/Summer 2019 collection, Jones’s debut as the fashion brand’s creative director.
Learn how to spot a fake KAWS art toy, and browse authentic KAWS prints, sculptures and mixed media works on 1stDibs.
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- Basquiat hand-painted sweatshirt 1979/1980 (early Jean-Michel Basquiat)By Jean-Michel BasquiatLocated in NEW YORK, NYJean-Michel Basquiat (untitled), 'MAN MADE Sweatshirt', c. 1979: Basquiat produced this rare original hand-painted sweatshirt (among others, with only few known to have survived) for the purposes of selling these on his own and through the historic downtown fashion boutique, Patricia Field’s. Basquiat was captured wearing a similar example in the well publicized 1979 photo, 'Basquiat Dancing at The Mudd Club' by Nicholas Taylor of Gray. This double-sided work notably features Basquiat’s ‘MANMADE’ tag - Basquiat’s alias after he took to the streets to declare “SAMO is Dead”. The work is further highlighted by Basquiat’s ‘BAD’ motif - uniquely paralleling his consideration to naming his band, ‘Bad Fools’ prior to Gray. In trademark Basquiat style, we also find the vertically spaced ‘E’ on both sides of the piece, as well as dashed lines which would appear in many of the artist’s Anti-Product cards, early drawings and more. The work emanates directly from the collection of world renowned author Lucy Sante (formerly Luc Sante). As it is well publicized, Basquiat worked with Sante in 1979/80 on the downtown-art scene publication, ‘Stranded’ (New York, 1980). Medium: Acrylic on cotton sweatshirt (double-sided artwork). Executed circa 1979/1980. Dimensions: 16.5 x 22 inches (outstretched cuff to cuff: 50 inches & sleeve length: 18 inches). Condition: In good overall vintage condition. Bright well-preserved colors; some minor discoloration in several areas due to normal age related wear and use; scattered stains located on the hem, inner arm area(s) and cuffs; scattered minor pilling; loose thread on the reverse of hem. Basquiat's artwork throughout remains fully intact. Unique. One of a kind. Signed ‘MANMADE’ and numbered 5/100 on the reverse. Provenance: Gifted by Basquiat to Lucy Sante; obtained directly from the former. Sante's relationship to Basquiat is well documented in three publications (see below literature/references for more). Accompanied by a letter of provenance from Sante. Literature/References: -'Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat,' by Sarah Driver - this 2018 documentary features an in-depth section devoted to Basquiat's 'Man Made' clothing, featuring an interview with designer Patricia Field & artist Kenny Scharf. - 'Basquiat Before Basquiat' (MCA Denver; see Sante, p.40-43 ). - 'Stranded' issue four index (Spring 1980). Basquiat's identity is confirmed as 'Man-Made' midway on page. - 'Zeitgeist: The Art Scene of Teenage Basquiat' (Howl Arts 2018; essay: 'Stranded' by Lucy Sante). - 'An Intimate Look at Jean-Michel Basquiat's Early Days' by Lucy Sante (Village Voice 2/8/17). -'Man Made by Basquiat' (MinnieMuse) May 2019. -'Exploring Jean-Michel Basquiat's 1970's Clothing Collection, 'Man Made.'' Vice Magazine, May 2019. - ‘The Jean-Michel Basquiat Reader’ (Moore pg. 334) discusses Basquiat’s Man Made painted clothing. - 'Basquiat Dancing at The Mudd Club' photograph by Nicholas Taylor of Gray (Basquiat wears a similarly painted sweatshirt). Basquiat’s use of ’MAN MADE', see: - Glenn O'Brien "Graffiti '80;" High Times, June 1980 (p. 53-54); "Jean-Michel Basquiat who is known to many as SAMO, had changed his alias to Man Made". - Jean-Michel Basquiat: 1981, the Studio of the Street (Diego Cortez; 2007 p. 80). - The Last Time I Saw Basquiat (NYR Daily 9/3/16; essay by Lucy Sante). - Basquiat: Boom For Real (Barbican; Nairne, Buchhart & Johnson p.26). - Sotheby's S2 Catalog & Sale, "Man Made" (May 2013). Intertextual References: Basquiat's 'BAD' motif further appears in the following 1979 works: - "Stupid Games, Bad Ideas" (color xerox; see Basquiat: Boom For Real pg. 108). - Basquiat (untitled) "Test Pattern" (original drawing and xerox; see Basquiat: Boom For Real pg. 147). - Basquiat (untitled) "Gumby Is Bad" t-shirt (worn on camera by the artist at Canal Zone...Category
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How to Spot a Fake KAWS Figure
KAWS art toys have developed an avid audience in recent decades, and as in any robust collectible market, counterfeiters have followed the mania. Of course, you don’t have to worry about that on 1stDibs, where all our sellers are highly vetted.
KAWS Is Having a Major Effect on Popular Culture, Whether on the Street or in Museums
From graffiti tagger to hypebeast obsession to auction hero — we chart the artist’s rise and his widening influence.