No Reply #9 2015

Curator: Ah, another dose of vibrant energy! KAWS' "No Reply #9" from 2015. What's your take? Editor: Bold. A chaotic symphony of shapes... and a little unnerving, I must admit. There is tension—and something infantile at play, with colors pulled straight from the toy box. Curator: Infantile... maybe that’s the magic. KAWS plays on familiarity, right? Cartoon elements abstracted, shapes suggestive of characters we *almost* recognize. It’s pop art for the Instagram age, acrylic paint meets a modernist aesthetic. Editor: Right. Let's focus on the interplay of the colours. How they push and pull, advancing and receding. Semiotically, the crossed-out eyes – a recurrent symbol – disrupt any conventional reading. The large orange segment—could that be a disembodied head— dominates the upper register, compressing a grey mass. It hints at figuration, sure, but it staunchly defies any immediate narrative. It is an assertion that maybe everything is alright, despite of an unsettling visual expression of what might exist below a placid exterior. Curator: Yes! KAWS messes with our desire to neatly categorize. I get a real sense of... yearning? "No Reply"—maybe it’s about that unrequited connection, the void in our hyper-connected world. We think the artwork speaks of not getting your expectations addressed through established communication means: the screen. That empty blue field! It's gorgeous but isolating. Editor: Interesting, reading it in terms of lack—absence and negativity. We could delve deeper into structural absences here—the unsaid expectations around digital communication perhaps? This pop language and vibrant shapes belie the deconstructed emotion. We project meaning onto fragments, never quite getting a full picture. Curator: Well said. And aren't we all just projecting meaning, making connections where maybe none exist? That's the power, and sometimes the trickery, of abstraction! But KAWS certainly speaks in volumes by muting our senses in many ways. I wonder how much the geometricity itself enhances this experience of abstraction? Editor: A successful, yet unsettling disruption then. Makes us think about…everything. Curator: Exactly! And in a package of colours and bold, deceptively simple lines!