KAWS: FAMILY
September 27, 2023 - August 9, 2024
Located on Level 2 in Gallery 224.
Admission is always FREE for AGO Members, AGO Annual Pass Holders & Indigenous Peoples. Learn more.
EXHIBITION OVERVIEW
Making his Canadian museum debut, Brooklyn-based artist Brian Donnelly (1974), better known as KAWS, bridges the worlds of art, popular culture and commerce with sophisticated humour and insightful appropriation. Renowned for his larger-than-life sculptures of cartoon-inspired characters and exuberant hard-edge paintings that playfully emphasize line and colour, much like 1960s Pop artists, he blurs the boundaries between populist and elite art, bringing mass media imagery into traditional art spaces. Straddling the world of art and design, KAWS has forged a large international following both inside and outside the art world.
In this original AGO exhibition, visitors will see first hand the artist's meticulous methods, creative process and range, through more than 75 artworks including wall murals, sketches, paintings, sculptures, his altered phone booth advertisements and product collaborations. Centered in Signy Eaton Gallery, with interventions throughout the museum, the centrepiece of the exhibition, is a larger-than-life painted bronze sculpture FAMILY (2021), featuring four of KAWS’ recurring figures of varying sizes posed as a nuclear family.
Organized by the AGO, the exhibition is curated by Julian Cox, AGO Deputy Director and Chief Curator.
Signature Partner
Signature Partner
Contributing Sponsor
Contributing Sponsor
Lead Support
Lead Support
The Dorothy Strelsin Foundation
Generous Support
Generous Support
Susan, Perry, Taylor and Nicholas Dellelce
DH Gales Family Foundation
Greg & Susan Guichon
Steven & Lynda Latner
Anonymous
Contemporary programming at the AGO generously supported by
Contemporary programming at the AGO generously supported by
RESOURCES
EXHIBITION LARGE TEXT
Download large print in English (PDF 271 KB) Download large print in French (PDF 285 KB)
DESCRIPTIVE AUDIO GUIDE
Audio description of artworks help remove barriers to our collections and exhibitions. Artworks will be highlighted through creative audio description, a type of spoken language describing visual images or objects, which enables audiences to engage and pursue their own journey in relation to visual art.
Download the Descriptive Audio Guide Transcript (PDF 108 KB)
BlindSquare Event App
BlindSquare is a free GPS app developed for the blind, deafblind, and partially sighted. The GPS technology will alert your device to each described audio stop, provide text-to-speech for in-gallery room panels and wayfinding directives in this exhibition. You can download the app from the Apple App Store or by using a QR code onsite. iOS compatible only.
AR SCULPTURES IN GALLERIA ITALIA
A highlight of KAWS: FAMILY is two augmented reality (AR) artworks, WATCHING and COMPANION (EXPANDED), located in Galleria Italia. To activate and share images of these artworks, visitors need to download to their personal mobile device the free Acute Art app. It is recommended that you download the app before visiting the museum.
To activate the sculptures:
- Download the free Acute Art app onto your mobile device (iPhone 8 or newer | Android OS 7.0 or newer)
- Upon entering Galleria Italia (Gallery 223), look for the two white platforms on the floor.
- Open the app on your mobile device. Allow the app access to your location and camera.
- Select AGO from the app home page.
- Each white platform corresponds to a different sculpture. Select your sculpture.
- Point your camera at the white platform on floor, standing approximately 1 metre (3 feet) away to see the AR sculpture appear.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
KAWS was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 1974. Over the last two decades he has built a successful career with work that consistently shows his formal agility as an artist, as well as his underlying wit, irreverence and affection for our times. His practice possesses a sophisticated humour and thoughtful interplay with consumer products and collaborations with global brands, ranging from General Mills and Nike, to Supreme and Comme de Garçons. He often draws inspiration from and appropriates from pop-culture animations to form a unique artistic vocabulary for his work across a variety of media.
KAWS has exhibited extensively throughout the United States and internationally, but never in Canada. Recent solo exhibitions of his work have been presented at institutions such as the Serpentine Gallery, London, UK; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Brooklyn Museum, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Fire Station, Qatar Museums, Doha; Mori Arts Center Gallery, Tokyo; and the Yuz Museum, Shanghai. He is represented by Skarstedt Gallery in New York.
