Ah, KAWS at the NGV. A hypebeast, Melbourne art hipster and collector’s wet dream all in one.
With the continued direction of the NGV under Tony Ellwood, contemporary cool-kid art and design has become an expected staple at Australia’s most visited gallery. Off the back of such hit exhibitions as Warhol—Weiwei in 2015, Viktor and Rolf, the unforgettable Triennial (featuring works by Yayoi Kusama and those damn Ron Mueck skulls everyone posted on Instagram) and last year’s MoMA collection (Roy Lichtenstein, Dalí), KAWS seems to slide right into the equation with a nod to younger streetwear culture. The NGV is reminding us it’s still cool, fellow kids.
The exhibition itself was rather small by NGV standards - although tickets allocated an hour of viewing time, a particularly casual art fan could enjoy the exhibition in its entirety in under 30 minutes. Oversized sculptures were contained to one room, and smaller figurines housed behind glass cabinets on the way out. The idea to include an exhibition-specific store with collectible KAWS memorabilia inside the exhibition itself was a stroke of capitalistic genius. But don’t get too excited - the only product worth getting stirred up over might be the rare collectible KAWS figurines, which predictably were all sold out and listed as having prices upon request (just to make us salivate at the thought of how expensive they were that much more, I’m sure).
Yes, it’s clearly understandable that to the majority, the appeal in KAWS is in it’s exclusivity. The high price point, the limited edition nature of products. The selective collaborations. The art stands the test of time though - and beneath all the hypebeast-ery, the KAWS companion remains a curious symbol of loneliness and dislocation in a modern world.
Or, maybe it’s just a cool kid fashion thing, and I’m just reading too much into it.
Coming up? More of the same to anticipate from the NGV, with a nod to Comme des Garçons and every VCA student’s faves, Haring and Basquiat. What did you expect?
