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CLEAN SLATE
Artist
KAWS
(Born 1974, United States)
Date2018
MediumBronze
DimensionsOverall: 20 3/4 × 12 × 9 11/16 ft. (6.32 × 3.66 × 2.95 m)
Weight: 6 Ton 360 lb. (5606.5 kg)
Weight: 6 Ton 360 lb. (5606.5 kg)
Credit LineCollection of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Museum purchase, The Friends of Art Endowment Fund
Object number2018.4.A-D
Status
On viewMarkingsStamped "1/1 KAWS..18" under proper left foot
Copyright© KAWS
Category
Label TextKAWS began his career in the 1990s as a graffiti artist. By the time he entered the School of Visual Arts in New York, his painted-on interventions to advertisements around Manhattan had become well known. In the early 2000s, he started making paintings, sculptures, and drawings that featured his own cast of recurring characters, informed by art history and inspired by cartoons—his COMPANION character takes cues from Mickey Mouse, for example—executed with a clean, graphic style reminiscent of Pop art. KAWS’s work follows the continuum of Pop art, particularly the legacy of Andy Warhol, not only in its investigation of pop-culture imagery but also in its thrust toward art as commodity with the artist as self-promoter.
CLEAN SLATE, 2018, commissioned by the Modern, features KAWS’s iconic COMPANION character, which originated as a vinyl toy in 1999. Over time, the COMPANION figure expanded in size and was transformed into new materials, including bronze, fiberglass, and wood. The Modern’s bronze sculpture stands 21 feet tall and overlooks the Museum’s reflecting pond. The central figure strides forward, embracing smaller, childlike COMPANION figures in each arm, a gesture recognizable, even on a monumental scale, to all who have found themselves in the company of two tired toddlers.
KAWS’s figures have amicable names and represent the kinds of partners we all long for—CHUM, COMPANION, and BFF. They are humanized in the way they embody a range of emotions, from sadness to empathy to humor. They are, to put it simply, like us.
CLEAN SLATE, 2018, commissioned by the Modern, features KAWS’s iconic COMPANION character, which originated as a vinyl toy in 1999. Over time, the COMPANION figure expanded in size and was transformed into new materials, including bronze, fiberglass, and wood. The Modern’s bronze sculpture stands 21 feet tall and overlooks the Museum’s reflecting pond. The central figure strides forward, embracing smaller, childlike COMPANION figures in each arm, a gesture recognizable, even on a monumental scale, to all who have found themselves in the company of two tired toddlers.
KAWS’s figures have amicable names and represent the kinds of partners we all long for—CHUM, COMPANION, and BFF. They are humanized in the way they embody a range of emotions, from sadness to empathy to humor. They are, to put it simply, like us.