No Reply #8 2015

KAWS made this piece, No Reply #8, and there are some really smooth surfaces going on here. The graphic boldness is striking. The piece is all about flatness, isn't it? It’s like the antithesis of impasto or gestural brushwork, but look at the graphic outlines. It feels like a cartoon or graphic novel. Like a big, bold statement laid down with absolute precision. This isn't about the hand of the artist in the traditional sense; it's about something else, a kind of manufactured feeling, maybe even a critique of it. KAWS's work shares some knowing cynicism with Pop artists like Warhol or Lichtenstein, who also took mass-produced images as their starting point, but there's something very contemporary about KAWS’s sensibility. It's both playful and deeply unsettling. Ultimately, though, maybe all art is just a conversation.