Pop artist Brian “KAWS” Donnelly would have you think that family is important to him. After all, his first major West Coast show is titled “KAWS: Family,” currently on display at SF MoMA. Promotional materials show sculptures of his un-mouthed characters posed for a family portrait. Plus, Donnelly is a married father of two, so one would imagine he has something to say on the subject. Yet the impression one gets from the new show is that, for KAWS, family is about the art of marketing.
The Brooklyn-based illustrator and sculptor has occasionally been compared to Andy Warhol due to Donnelly’s similar appropriation of pop culture imagery. But where Warhol famously recontextualized pop ephemera, Donnelly’s work merely latches onto it. Whereas his British peer Banksy subverts pop culture iconography, KAWS is all too eager to lend his brand to official corporate sponsors.
Brian Donnelly. Photo by Shaniqwa Jarvis
Donnelly’s priorities are evident upon entering SF MoMA’s fourth floor, which houses the exhibition. The first piece is the interactive “Make a Friend for BFF” game, where touchscreens encourage children to create a funny playmate for the fuzzy quasi-Muppet. Steps away is a triptych of untitled photos documenting KAWS’ graffiti roots. (Donnelly adopted the name KAWS because he liked the way it looked on graffiti.)
In his younger days, Donnelly would snatch subway advertisements, integrate his own characters and then replace the advertisements, making it seem as if his designs were always a part of the image. It was the brash move of an impulsive youngster, as well as the starting point for this show’s real overarching theme, which is stenciled on the wall: “Pop Culture and the Art of Appropriation.”
Donnelly makes no apologies for appropriating mainstream staples. In fact, he wears the term “appropriation” like a badge of honor. During the press preview, he took pride in the way his “Kimpsons” illustrations, which take up an entire section of this exhibition, are instantly recognizable as Matt Groenig’s billion-dollar creation.
He recalled creating the series in Japan in the early-2000s, and how the paintings–featuring his trademark “dead eyes” were the only thing that didn’t represent a cultural barrier between him and his local hosts: “I didn’t know the language, they didn’t know a lot of English, but everyone knew Homer!”
Most of “KAWS: Family” comes off as a tribute to his having moved from making unofficial fan art to official commissions. The “Branding and Collaboration” section features display cases dedicated to his 2020 line of Nikes, as well as an entire wall dedicated to his 2022 General Mills collaboration for their monster cereals.
KAWS, SPACE, 2021; © KAWS
A section called “Space” features his design for Kid Cudi’s 2022 “Man on the Moon” vinyl box set alongside an official KAWS Moonman from the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards. In each commission, very little redesigning takes place. The only apparent difference is that the familiar characters now feature the cloud-like “KAWS head” with its puffy ears, lack of mouth, and Xs in the place of eyes.
The few times the work does venture into personal territory, it leaves you wanting more. For instance, the paintings “Hopeless Horizon” (2022) and “Lost Future” (2023) openly illustrate Donnelly’s sense of isolation during the COVID shelter-in-place of 2020. Both feature the character CHUMS (KAWS’ take on the Michelin Man) trapped behind neon-colored prison bars. The similarly-themed sculpture “Separated” (2021, bronze and paint) features the Mickey Mouse-inspired Companion huddled on the floor, crying into his hands. These few pieces deliver a personal insight that’s otherwise lacking among all the wall-sized boxes of Reese’s Puffs from 2023 that take up the most real estate.
KAWS, SEPARATED, 2021; © KAWS
There’s no mistaking Donnelly’s talent. Quite the contrary, one of the highlights of the show is an Instagram video showing him painstakingly painting one of his large prints by hand. But aside from admirable craft, “KAWS: Family” is less a representation of the artist’s ideas of the family unit and more a hall of fame to his own success in the marketplace. Had the show explored the rise of a street artist to a recognizable brand, it would have had something. Instead, it’s mostly a Technicolor collection of lucrative corporate appropriation of street-level talent.
KAWS, CHUM, 2002; © KAWS; Photo by Farzad Owrang
KAWS, THE PORTRAIT, 2021; © KAWS; Photo by Farzad Owrang
KAWS, GONE, 2020; © KAWS
SF MoMA’s “KAWS: Family” runs from November 20 through May 3, 2026 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 151 Third St.