Ups And Downs #5 2013

Here, we have Kaws’s painting with its slick surfaces and bold colors—blues, purples, pinks, and yellow—all delineated by hard black lines. It’s like the painting came into being through decisions and changes. I wonder, what's it like to be Kaws making this? The paint seems so flat, almost like it’s been airbrushed onto the canvas. This flatness is a kind of gesture, right? Like when you put on makeup, there’s a performative aspect to it. The crossed-out eyes—those Xs—they’re such an iconic motif. Does it cancel something? Or does it mark a new way of seeing? I'm guessing Kaws, like so many artists, is obsessed with image-making and that the flat colorful sections form a kind of vision, or language. In art, everything borrows from everything else. The colors remind me of Peter Halley's fluorescent geometries, though Kaws brings something else, a kind of pop sensibility. It's amazing how artists talk to each other across time, remixing the past into something totally new. In any painting, the real meaning lies in the uncertainty and the questions that arise for each viewer.