KAWS: What Party

The Instagram-famous artist known as KAWS is celebrated in this lavishly illustrated chronicle of his impressive career. In separate essays accompanied by numerous photos, Brooklyn Museum curator Tsai and Birnbaum, of London’s Acute Art laboratory, offer their takes on the artist who “bombed billboards in situ” and found fame in the “leveling of the hierarchy of high and low art.” Born in 1974 as Brian Donnelly, KAWS began his career in the ’90s tagging billboards in Jersey City, with a skull and crossbones with x-ed out eyes as his signature. The skull eventually became KAWS’s calling card in both his street art and, later, his three-dimensional works, including his famed COMPANION sculpture, which features the X X eyes and crossbones upon a figure reminiscent of Mickey Mouse. The artist’s use of cartoonish bodies, Birnbaum writes, offers viewers across the globe “a sense of connectedness in a world of total commodification.” Another sculpture, TAKE, features his COMPANION character with a lifeless Elmo-like figure draped in its arms. The effect is both unsettling and captivating, as is this catalog of his body of work. A visual extravaganza, this will delight the many fans of KAWS. (June)