KAWS: HOLIDAY

Skarstedt announces a new gallery space opening at The Royal Poinciana Plaza in Palm Beach, Florida.

To inaugurate the space, the gallery will present KAWS: HOLIDAY, an exhibition of four aluminum sculptures based on the artist’s monumental inflatable works which toured globally.

In collaboration with the Hong Kong based creative studio, AllRightsReserved, the first rendition of HOLIDAY appeared in 2018, floating in Seokchon Lake in Seoul, Korea. Reclined, relaxed, and with outstretched arms, a COMPANION in the same pose appeared again in Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour in March of 2019 in the third iteration, following a seated version installed in front of Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei, Taiwan. With a fast-growing love for the traveling COMPANION, KAWS’ fourth installment of HOLIDAY, near the base of Mount Fuji, included a unique camping experience with overnight stays, mirroring the spirit of the lounging figure with hand lazily resting on its stomach and knees propped up. A few months later, in conjunction with the artist’s 2019 exhibition at the Fire Station in Doha, curated by Germano Celant, the Mount Fuji COMPANION reappeared by Dhow Harbour, celebrating the artist’s first solo exhibition there. A new pose of resting parent and child will now be seen for the first time, in aluminum.

Rousing personalities out of his cast of characters and manipulating form and scale with nuanced gestures, KAWS puts forth these new sculptures embodying leisure in contrast to the often somber, serious, and downcast disposition of COMPANION. These contemplative counterparts invite the viewer to relish simple pleasures, offering a respite from the weight of our present conditions.