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Current Exhibition KAWS + Warhol

May 18, 2024–January 20, 2025

Painting showing two identical images of a car crash and body hanging out of a car window. In front of the painting a sculpture shows a figure laying face down.

KAWS + Warhol exhibition view at The Andy Warhol Museum.

Logo for KAWS + Warhpol

In celebration of its 30th anniversary, The Warhol presents KAWS + Warhol, the first exhibition to examine the dark themes present in the work of both artists. From skulls to car crashes, both artists deploy their signature bright colors and pop culture references while also presenting the lurid spectacle of death. The dark undercurrents in the work of KAWS and Warhol are magnified and brought into plain sight by presenting the two artists together for the first time.

KAWS will also respond to Warhol’s embrace of commercialism by presenting a new series of paintings, sculptures, and installations related to his recent commission with General Mills which inserted his signature characters into the packaging for some of America’s most loved cereal boxes including Reese’s Puffs, Count Chocula, and Boo-Berry. The cereal works will be juxtaposed with Warhol’s iconic Brillo Boxes and his lesser-known series of paintings for children.

In response to The Warhol’s new initiative The Pop District, KAWS will also present a monumental wooden sculpture in Pop Park, directly across from the museum and visible from its entrance space.

 

KAWS + Warhol is presented by

Uniqlo Lifewear

 

Major support provided by

  Nemacolin

Jim Spencer & Michael Lin, and Kathe & Jim Patrinos.

 

Generous support provided by

The Fine Foundation logo

 

Media Sponsor Orange Barrel Media logo

Publication

KAWS + Warhol

A never-before-seen look at the striking thematic parallels between KAWS and Andy Warhol, two of the most iconic artists of our time

As celebrated artists that draw from popular culture, KAWS and Andy Warhol are known for creating art that is approachable beyond the confines of the traditional art world. While at first glance, both artists’ works often appear celebratory and joyful, they share a number of dark common threads beneath the surface: tragedy as spectacle and meditations on death and dying. When these two bold bodies of work are juxtaposed, that connection is made explicit and powerful.

This book highlights the artistic intersection of KAWS and Warhol, featuring their takes on death and disaster, advertising, nostalgia, abstraction, skulls, and self-portraiture. Accompanying a major exhibition at The Andy Warhol Museum that will travel internationally, it presents some of the most standout and analogous works from two of the most popular artists of all time.

Foreword by Patrick Moore, with an interview by Laurie Simmons and essays by Thomas Crow and Marianne Dobner

Published by Monacelli, a Phaidon company, 2024

$69.95
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The cover of a black hard cover book. On the cover is two white Xs in a row in the middle of the cover.