Presenting the Past 2014

Kaws made "Presenting the Past" with flat blocks of colour to create a kind of cartoonish world. What strikes me first is the total flatness of the work; it has this really graphic feel, like a page from a comic book blown up to a huge scale. It's interesting how he uses colour to create depth, even though the shapes themselves are so simple. Take that purple orb, for instance – is it a head? A planet? And the way the yellow figure wraps around it, that bright green feels almost… poisonous? It's like a visual puzzle, and you’re sort of invited to put the pieces together yourself. It makes me think of Lichtenstein, or maybe even some of those old Pop artists, but with a contemporary twist. It is both playful and unsettling, reminding us that art is always a conversation, a remix of ideas across time.