Eliana Willis

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    in Exhibitions

    ‘You Literally Got Me Into KAWS Fam’: What Game-Playing Teens Think About the Artist’s New Project on Fortnite

    London’s art critics have, almost unanimously, given the KAWS exhibition, which opened recently at the Serpentine Galleries, a thumbs down. But a much younger crowd, which has been viewing the show on the videogame Fortnite, has a very different opinion.
    “New Fiction” is the artist’s first major solo show in the UK capital, and in addition to the presentation of paintings and sculptures in London, visitors across the globe can see the exhibition online through the massive multiplayer game Fortnite—an experiment for all the parties involved. There are also virtual versions of the artist’s famous crossed-eye “Companion” sculpture that can be viewed via Acute Art’s augmented reality app.
    But the technological twists have apparently failed to please the critics. The Evening Standard’s Ben Luke said the show is “unspeakably awful” and “soul-crushingly boring,” giving it just one star. “I have no idea why the Serpentine has got involved with this,” bemoaned Eddy Frankel, who also gave the show one star in Time Out. “I want to be immersed in KAWS about as much as I want to be immersed in a vat of pus […] It has no concepts, no emotions, no beauty and absolutely no point.” And The Telegraph’s Alastair Smart calls the show a “lost KAWS.”
    On the other hand, Fortnite players who choose to roam around the virtual grounds of the Serpentine wearing KAWS-themed skins, appear to be having a great time in the show, jumping around and chasing after each other in the gallery, which wouldn’t be allowed in reality. Some have even said they loved the works, a stark contrast to Smart’s prediction in his review that it would be “hard to see any player having a meaningful experience in the would-be exhibition.”

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    “I would say it’s pretty awesome,” Max Kipiniak, a 17-year-old Brooklyn-based high school student, told Artnet News. Kipiniak said he was familiar with KAWS and owned clothes from the artist’s collaboration with Japanese brand Uniqlo. He also found the partnership between an online video game and an artist impressive and he hoped to see more of it.
    “The art itself in the gallery was not extremely impressive to me. I guess I prefer to see art in person rather than online, but it was still cool to see his sculptures and art pieces come to life in a video game,” he continued. “I respect artists like KAWS for being open-minded enough to seek out unique ways to publicize their art to new audiences.”
    John Olusetire, a 25-year-old software developer based in Nigeria who does not regularly visit art galleries, said “the creative hub and the art (both paintings and sculptures) were cool.” He added that the Fortnite show “was easy to navigate. There’s a 2D map you can access,” and he pointed to a game-specific feature that particularly won him over: “I loved the maze, figuring it out was fun.”
    “Overall [it was] a good experience,” said a 16-year-old gamer from India, who asked to remain anonymous. “It’s good to see art displayed inside a game like Fortnite. I have never been to any actual art museums in person, now with the pandemic situation, I am happy to see it in the form of a creative hub.”

    Serpentine has said that the show, curated by Daniel Birnbaum, artistic director of the VR and AR production company Acute Art, could reach some 400 million Fortnite players. Organizers have declined to reveal exactly how many players have checked into the virtual show since it debuted a week ago, but it is certainly discussed online. Some players have written on Reddit saying that the show was cool. On Twitter, @GAMMAVERSE_ said: “I am in awe.” @OgEcomiMemelord replied: “You literally got me into kaws fam!” And @Masa_LJwG said: “I enjoyed the exhibition a lot! Thank you from Japan.”
    For those unable to join the game, there is no lack of players’ tour videos streaming on YouTube. “So beautiful,” commented Youtuber ShiKago773, who visited the virtual exhibition in a pink KAWS-themed skin. In the video, ShiKago773’s character is seen standing in front of nearly each single work and examining each of them.
    “I have these [sculptures as] keychains. I love them. That’s badass,” ShiKago773 adds. “There are so many of [the artworks], so many feelings. Wow. Oh my gosh, Fortnite, thank you. I love it.”
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    in Exhibitions

    In Pictures: See Stunning Works by the Late Fashion Designer Thierry Mugler, Who Dressed Kim, Cardi, and Gaga

    Thierry Mugler, the French fashion designer who married camp, couture, steampunk, science fiction, and S&M, all with his trademark sensuality, died on Sunday, January 23, age 73.
    His death was announced by House of Mugler, his eponymous brand.
    After declining invitations for several retrospectives, Mugler agreed to a 2019 show, “Thierry Mugler, Couturissime,” at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. The traveling exhibition is now on view at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris through April.
    Anniversaire des 20 ans collection, Haute couture fall/winter 1995-1996 © Patrice Stable, courtesy of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs.
    When it first opened in Montreal in 2019, it coincided with the designer’s return to public life.
    At that year’s Grammy awards, rapper Cardi B donned the Mugler’s “Venus” gown (from his 1995/1996 collection), with her pale pink torso surrounded by petals, the rest of the gown encased in black.
    At that same year’s Met Gala, Kim Kardashian, who often mined the Mugler archives, appeared on the red carpet in the first new Mugler-made wear in 20 years: a one-of-a-kind latex corset dress dripping in crystals that took eight months to complete.
    The exhibition traces Mugler’s career and myriad roles within the art and fashion worlds. (Before he founded his brand in 1974, he created stage costumes for Macbeth, directed films and a music video, published books of photography, and was even a dancer.)
    Les Insectes collection, haute couture spring/summer 1997. © Patrice Stable, courtesy of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs.
    Organized, like an opera, into multiple acts, the show touches on the milestones of his career: from his heyday in the 1980s (when his trademark “Glamazon” design, with its exaggerated silhouette and torpedo-like bustier, defined pop culture); to his more fantastical collections of the 1990s, when he drew inspiration from insects, birds, nymphs, and, in one case, cyborgs.
    In addition to Cardi B and Kim Kardashian, Mugler found a new audience with pop stars including Lady Gaga and Beyoncé, who hired him to design the looks for her 2009 I Am… world tour.
    French fashion designer Thierry Mugler. (Photo: Britta Pedersen/DPA/AFP via Getty Images.)
    “Fashion is still a great tool, because it’s a three-dimensional art,” he told Women’s Wear Daily in 2019. “It’s the most feral form of art, in the best sense of the word, meaning that it touches on the human, and that’s interesting.”
    See images from the exhibition below.
    ‘Thierry Mugler : Couturissime’ exhibition at the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Paris. (Photo by CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT/AFP via Getty Images)
    ‘Thierry Mugler : Couturissime’ exhibition at the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Paris. (Photo by CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT/AFP via Getty Images)
    ‘Thierry Mugler : Couturissime’ exhibition at the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Paris. (Photo by CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT/AFP via Getty Images)
    ‘Thierry Mugler : Couturissime’ exhibition at the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Paris. (Photo by CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT/AFP via Getty Images)
    ‘Thierry Mugler : Couturissime’ exhibition at the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Paris. (Photo by CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT/AFP via Getty Images)
    ‘Thierry Mugler : Couturissime’ exhibition at the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Paris. (Photo by CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT/AFP via Getty Images)
    ‘Thierry Mugler : Couturissime’ exhibition at the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Paris. (Photo by CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT/AFP via Getty Images)
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    in Street Art

    Artist Retrospective: Kobra

    Brazilian street artist Eduardo Kobra has become one of the most recognizable and prominent muralists of our time. Kobra is known for utilizing bold kaleidoscopic colors and bold geometric compositions to complete large-scale portraits.As an artist, Kobra draws inspiration both from society and human beings as individuals; in particular, human behavior. Protesting such topics as the mistreatment of animals, war, and poverty, it is important that each work of art communicates a message of peace.“Genial Is Riding a Bike” in Sao Paulo, Brazil, 2015Historical figures and musical masterminds continue to be Eduardo Kobra’s favorite subjects. He has done portraits of Tupac Shakur, John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Notorious B.I.G., Ray Charles, Kurt Cobain, and Jim Morrison. Albert Einstein, Basquiat, Abraham Lincoln, the Dalai Lama, Andy Warhol, and Anne Frank  are just a few of the others who Kobra has honored on walls.“Etnias” in Rio de Janiero, Brazil, 2016With works on five continents, he currently holds the record for the largest graffiti mural in the world. The mural is painted on a vast 190-metre-long wall in the city’s formerly run-down port area, Praça Mauá, measuring almost 3,000 square metres. The mural is entitled “etnias” or “ethnicities” in English and used approximately 100 gallons of white paint, 1,500 litres of coloured paint, and at least 3,500 cans of spray paint.Scroll down below to view our selection of Kobra’s best works over the years.Mural in World Trade Center Campus, New York, 2021Mural in World Trade Center Campus, New York, 2021“Let Me Be Myself” in Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2016Using his signature kaleidoscope-like style, Kobra worked several days to create this huge and beautiful portrait of Anna Frank, a German-born diarist and writer.“Fight For Street Art” featuring Basquiat and Warhol in New York City, USA, 2014“The Bedouin” in Dubai, UAE, 2015Brazilian street artist painted this 26 meters high by 11 meters wide building which is now featuring one of signature kaleidoscopic portraits. The Bedouin are an Arab ethnocultural group, descended from nomads who have historically inhabited the Arabian and Syrian Deserts.Portrait of Alfred Nobel for in Sweden, 2014“Arthur Rubinstein” in Lodz, Poland, 2014The Brazilian artist painted this tribute to Arthur Rubinstein using his signature style. Arthur Rubinstein, KBE was a Polish American classical pianist. He received international acclaim for his performances of the music written by a variety of composers and many regard him as the greatest Chopin interpreter of his time.Portrait of Polynesian women in Papeete, Tahiti, 2015Portrait of Vivian Maier In Chicago, USA, 2017Portrait of Albert Einstein in Los Angeles, USA, 2013The painting is located on La Brea Avenue, at the same location where he had previously painted the Mount Rushmore piece back in 2012. Kobra traveled to North America after being invited by Mr. Brainwash, the polemic french street artist who was the protagonist of Banksy’s documentary “Exit through the gift shop”.The artwork, which is 82 ft height and 26 ft width, shows a contemplative portrait of Albert Einstein through the colourful visual language of Kobra, which comprises a mixture of colours and geometric forms along with an hyper realistic feel.For more stunning works from talented muralist, check out our #Kobra page! More

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    in Exhibitions

    ‘It’s Just a Different Way of Reaching People’: KAWS on Why He Teamed Up With ‘Fortnite’ to Bring His Work Into the Virtual World

    At first glance, KAWS’s new show at London’s Serpentine Galleries appears to be a retrospective. It features more than 20 paintings and sculptures, all on loan from private collections. But there’s a twist: “New Fiction” is also a virtual exhibition, viewable in ultra high-definition via the online game Fortnite.
    By teaming up with Epic Games’s Fortnite, one of the world’s largest online video games with more than 400 million registered accounts, the artist has transformed the exhibition housed in the Serpentine North Gallery into a creative hub within the game. Players can dress up as pink KAWS “Companion” skeletons (the artist’s trademark figure) and roam around the exhibition, as well as the fantasy grounds outside.
    “It feels very natural,” the Brooklyn-based artist told Artnet News, “seeing my character walking around the exhibition in Fortnite. Aesthetically, it seems like it fits right with the work I’ve been making.”
    The hub is now live and the Serpentine exhibition is open through February 27.
    “This is the first time that we are doing something as ambitious as this,” the show’s curator, Daniel Birnbaum, told media at the exhibition’s preview. “The project will reach bigger audiences, bigger than the Venice Biennale. This is a new kind of local project that has a global reach.”
    Birnbaum is artistic director of the VR and AR production company Acute Art, which also created an augmented reality experience for the show. Users of Acute Art’s smartphone app can view KAWS’s virtual sculptures inside and outside of the gallery, and share pictures and videos on social media.
    American artist KAWS, real name Brian Donnelly, poses with an artwork titled SEEING. Photo by TOLGA AKMEN/AFP via Getty Images.
    Because the pandemic made frequent travel between New York and London impossible, KAWS had to work from home using a foam model of the show. The gaming technicians then used pictures of the model, and of the gallery, to imagine how the show and game could come together.
    “Once it’s set for the game, they have tons of testing and where they see if they can crash it, just try to see if it is a functional game,” KAWS said. “It’s been a lot to get there. To work with Fortnite, to have something game-ready, you need to be so far in advance.”

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    KAWS, it turns out, was already a Fortnite player. After he saw other artists, such as the rapper Travis Scott, stage events in the gaming virtual reality, he saw the potential for his own work. “I understood the scope of games outside gaming. The creative community is pretty incredible, an eye-opener.”
    This is not the first time KAWS has ventured into the virtual realm. In 2020, his project “COMPANION (EXPANDED)” brought an augmented-reality version of his figure to 11 cities around the world. Viewers could view the virtual sculpture floating in the air at specific locations via the Acute Art app. And the artist’s 2019-2020 exhibition “Companionship in the Age of Loneliness” at the National Gallery of Victoria in Australia hosted a complete virtual walkthrough of the show, which is still accessible today.
    A member of a staff uses the Acute Art app to display an (AR) augmented reality artwork “COMPANION (EXPANDED)” by KAWS. Photo by Tolga Akmen/AFP via Getty Images.
    Hans Ulrich Obrist, the artistic director of Serpentine, said “NEW FICTION” is a “unique project that tests how Serpentine can enter the multiverse.” The gallery has been experimenting with technologies in recent years, initiating projects that are bridging the gap between art and pop culture, such as a collaboration with K-pop sensation BTS.
    “The idea is to connect the bubbles of different sectors. And in future, artists will be making their own games,” Obrist said.
    KAWS has made it a goal to reach as many people as possible. “Even when I was putting work on the streets, I’ve been thinking about communications and how to reach people in new, unexpected ways,” the artist said. “That’s why I’m so interested in doing collaborations with fashion. It’s just a different way of reaching people in a new environment.”
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    in Street Art

    New Murals by Andrea Casciu in Bologna, Italy

    Street artist Andrea Casciu recently shared some fresh works on the walls of Bologna, Italy. These series of murals entitled “Piscis Volans” and “Camaleonte” (which translates to Flying Fish and Chameleon) features his signature style of bold, defined outlines and striking colors. Both of his works show a combination of faunas and flora merging into one body.Andrea Casciu was born in 1983. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Sassari where he deepened his artistic research towards painting, sculpture and engraving.Casciu creates associations of images and fantastic worlds which dialogue with the silhouette of his face. Changeability and transformations are the basis of his image.In his work there is an obstinate self-analysis that pushes him daily and a continuous study of himself and everything surround him.Check out below for more photos of Andrea Casciu’ work. More

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    in Street Art

    Mural by Recis in Medgidia, Romania

    Street artist Recis recently worked on a mural in Medgidia, Romania. The artwork is a part of an ongoing project that Recis is working on together with Sweet Damage Crew, a group of local graffiti artists. Their works ranges from graffitis on subways and trains to office walls and large scale murals.Scroll down to view more photos of Recis’ project More

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    in Exhibitions

    Jerry Saltz Once Called Artforum Ads ‘the Porn of the Art World.’ A New Show Brings Together Some of the Best—See Them Here

    In a 2014 article for New York magazine, critic Jerry Saltz described Artforum‘s ads as “the porn of the art world.” The glossy promotions comprised around 70 percent of the magazine’s pages. But these weren’t your typical ethereal, aspirational ads for perfume or jewelry. These are ads for art, after all.
    Artforum ads are often confrontational, cheeky, even raunchy. They are designed to start a conversation—and some have even earned their own places in art history.
    The Brooklyn-based Gallery 98, which specializes in art-world ephemera like announcement cards and gallery posters, recently got ahold of a cache of old Artforum magazines, from which they culled some of the most interesting and emblematic ads over the decades. Now available online to peruse or purchase is a wide swathe from 1970 to 2010 that feature portraits of artists.
    The resulting images are a delightful time capsule of different decades in the art market: there’s a then-considerably-less-successful Ed Ruscha in bed with two women, shot by Jerry McMillan in 1967; Judy Chicago’s debut both in Artforum and the broader art world under her new name, in 1970; and an ad for a show of then 25-year-old Dash Snow at Peres Projects two years before he died.
    See more selections from Gallery 98 below.
    Ed Ruscha, Wedding Announcement (Ed Ruscha Says Goodbye to College Joys), Artforum Advertisement, 1967. Courtesy online Gallery 98.
    Absolut Vodka, Nam June Paik, Absolut Paik, Artforum Advertisement, 2002. Courtesy online Gallery 98.
    Cindy Sherman, A Play of Selves, Artforum Advertisement, Metro Pictures, 2006. Courtesy online Gallery 98.
    Matthew Barney, Cremaster 5, Artforum Advertisement, Barbara Gladstone Gallery, 1997. Courtesy online Gallery 98.
    Dash Snow, Artforum Advertisement, Peres Projects Los Angeles, Artforum Advertisement, 2007. Courtesy online Gallery 98.
    Judy Chicago, One Woman Show, Artforum Advertisement, Jack Glenn Gallery (California), 1970. Courtesy Gallery 98 online.
    Kara Walker, Sikkema Jenkins & Co, Artforum Advertisement, 2006. Courtesy online Gallery 98.
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    in Exhibitions

    In Pictures: A New Exhibition Brings Together Maps From ‘Lord of the Rings,’ ‘Game of Thrones,’ and Other Fictional Worlds

    Even authors who create elaborate fictional landscapes need directions sometimes. That much is clear in “Mapping Fiction,” a new exhibition at the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens in California, which examines the ways authors and cartographers have mapped out fantastical worlds both like and unlike our own. 
    The show coincides with the centennial of James Joyce’s opus, Ulysses, and sure enough, several relics related to the book—including a first edition copy, a typescript draft of one of its chapters, and various intaglio prints of Dublin as described by the author—are on display. 
    But it wasn’t just the anniversary of Joyce’s novel that inspired the show, explained Karla Nielsen, the Huntington’s curator of literary collections who organized the effort.
    “Joyce adamantly did not want Ulysses published with a schema, a map of Dublin, any type of explanation really,” Nielsen said in a statement. “His resistance provoked me to think about how maps function when inset into a print novel. How do they influence how readers imagine the narrative?”
    Octavia E. Butler, Map of Acorn from notes for Parable of the Talents (ca. 1994). © Octavia E. Butler. Courtesy of The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
    Some 70 items gathered from the museum’s collection offer viewers answers to the curator’s prompt. Among the highlights are elaborate maps that accompanied early editions of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island and Kidnapped, and George R. R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones. Meanwhile, Octavia E. Butler’s hand-drawn—and unpublished—diagrams of her own imagined landscapes provide a peek into her processes of writing Parable of the Talents and Parable of the Trickster (which was never published).
    There are plenty of treats for rare book fans, such as early editions of Miguel de Cervantes’s El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha (The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha), Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, and Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days. The latter is presented next to a vintage board game inspired by Nellie Bly, a journalist who herself circumnavigated the world following the publication of Verne’s novel. (It only took her 72 days).
    See more images from “Mapping Fiction” below.
    Map from front endpapers to The Odyssey of Homer (1935). © Oxford University Press, Inc. Courtesy of The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
    D.W. Kellogg & Co., The Open Country of a Woman’s Heart (1833-42). © Nancy and Henry Rosin Collection. Courtesy of The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
    Map from Ludvig Holbergs Nicolai Klimii iter svbterranevm (1741). © The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
    David Lilburn, “The Quays” from In medias res (2006). © David Lilburn, 2021. Courtesy of The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
    A map from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island (1883). Courtesy of The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
    McLoughlin Bros., “Round the World with Nellie Bly” (1890). Courtesy of Jay T. Last and The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
    “Mapping Fiction” is on view through May 2 at the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California.
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