Making his Canadian museum debut, KAWS: Family, 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 and paintings of iconic characters steeped in the American zeitgeist, KAWS mines popular culture to produce meticulous and exuberant artworks that investigate our connection to objects and one another. 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.
KAWS. FAMILY, 2021.
KAWS. NEW MORNING, 2012.
KAWS. CHUM 2002. (Photo: Farzad Owrang)
KAWS. THE PORTRAIT, 2021. (Photo: Farzad Owrang)
KAWS. SPACE, 2021.
Admission to KAWS: FAMILY is free for all Indigenous peoples, AGO Members, Annual Passholders and visitors aged 25 and under. AGO Members see it first beginning Sept. 27, 2023. Annual Passholders join Members in seeing the exhibition beginning Oct. 4, 2023. Single paid tickets will be available beginning Oct. 11, 2023. The exhibition runs until March 31, 2024. For more details on how to book your tickets or to become a Member or Annual Passholder, visit AGO.ca.
