Kurfs 2009

Here we have “Kurfs” by Kaws, an acrylic painting on canvas that riffs on the Smurfs cartoon, and was made in the 21st century. What does it mean to take a cartoon figure, a Smurf, and give it the Kaws treatment, with crossed-out eyes and a general air of fashionable ennui? Kaws came up in the world of commercial and street art in the 1990s. He has a background in graffiti and also worked in animation. He’s part of a generation of artists who emerged after the culture wars of the 1980s and 90s, who grew up with a sense of irony and pastiche. Artists like Kaws are more comfortable than their predecessors with crossing the boundaries between high and low culture, between the museum and the street. To understand artists like Kaws, we need to ask what's at stake when art takes on the imagery of commercial culture. Researching the cultural and economic conditions that shape artistic production can reveal a lot about contemporary art's public role.