Urge #3 2020

Curator: Let's consider Kaws' "Urge #3," a mixed-media piece from 2020 blending collage and screenprint techniques. Editor: It’s immediately striking – a huddle of brightly colored cartoon hands. I’m drawn to the tactile quality, emphasized by those stark, stitched outlines. Curator: Yes, that almost crude stitching becomes a kind of framing device. Consider Kaws’ background in street art and his savvy transition into the gallery world. He bridges high and low culture, using pop-art imagery to engage a broad audience. This work reflects the commodification of emotion, distilling complex feelings into these simplified forms. Editor: I see what you mean, yet the interplay of those flattened hands is intriguing on a purely compositional level. The overlapping shapes and color choices—the red, green, blue—create visual tension, a strange balance. And what of the hands themselves—they’re oddly unsettling. They feel both comforting, in their huddle, and threatening, their button eyes replaced by X’s. Curator: Indeed, Kaws is a master of emotional ambiguity. These familiar cartoon tropes are twisted, hinting at a darker undercurrent. His work asks us to confront our own emotional landscape within the context of consumer culture, often blurring the lines between genuine feeling and manufactured sentiment. The "X" motif replacing the eyes is a consistent theme in his art. This can be seen as a commentary on cultural blind spots. Editor: Blind spots indeed. There's something disquieting in their blankness, their sheer lack of expressivity, considering the warmth typically expected from the huddle of hands. It almost evokes a kind of manufactured empathy that’s meant to feel safe but really just rings hollow. Curator: And the edition size too, of 250 prints, that makes a statement. The artist is acknowledging, but also leaning into, the demands and constraints of the art market. The collectability of an “original” piece, the idea of the readymade in art are being subverted even within a gallery print. Editor: It certainly invites you to ponder those issues. Curator: Thinking about "Urge #3" now, I find its social commentary even more potent. Editor: For me, I am newly aware of Kaws’ distinctive formal language—a tension of line, form and void that I can take with me to reflect on similar artworks.