KAWS latest selection of new works will be on show at Madrid’s Galería Javier López from February 17th. The iconic New York based artist has been busy since his solo show last year at Honor Fraser, and we can’t wait to see what comes from this show in Spain. Stay tuned for more.

Info: AM

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-tell us about your background.

I was born and raised in west Berlin – at that time an island of freedom surrounded by communist East Germany. There was a sense of isolation, but also pride. Overall, it was a comfortable place to be.

During the 80s I got into the skateboarding and graffiti scene inspired by heros like Christian Hosoi, Mike Vallely, Natas Kaupas and Ray Barbee.

My graffiti antics ended abruptly after losing my canvas – and perpetual playground – the Berlin Wall. Of course I maintained an interest in hip hop culture, as well as skateboarding, but found myself getting more and more into snowboarding at that time.

I would travel to the mountains of Switzerland, Austria, what was then Czechoslovakia and France almost every weekend. Later, in the 90s, I started surfing which became my major passion and which I have stuck with ever since.

The path to becoming a photographer came during my time as an editor at Lodown …

-tell us about Lodown times

A few friends of mine came together to create Lodown Magazine in late 96.

My old friend graphic designer Thomas Marecki aka Marok, fresh from his success with the Superlo 8 movie, was the publisher, with Marley Fabisiewicz, Alexander Flach aka Axel Foley, Stefan Batsch aka Skism and a whole bunch of freelance editors and contributors involved.

It was quite a posse.

I’m very proud of what we did: introducing fresh material from street art to bmx, skate and snowboarding, street fashion, graphic design and music.

Shooting legends such as Chad Muska, Arthur Baker, Jazzy Jeff, Babu or the Mighty Crown – summer-camp sessions with the Burton or Volcom team. Adidas/Y3, Nike, Vans, Eastpak, Spiewak… those brands were committed to the project.

Hip Hop was on the speakers. Meeting artists like Kostas Serimetis, Futura 2000, Kaws, Delta and Eric Haze was very cool. It was a lot of fun, a creative time. Lodown was a huge influence and instilled a deep interest in fashion and art.

-tell us about your berlin

Over the years many things have changed and i’m not sure anymore what my Berlin really is or what it has become. Of course I was very into subculture … was having a lot of fun after the wall came down.

East Berlin was a thrilling adventure playground. Very exciting and full of freedom. I have great memories of my time living in Kreuzberg close to the old border.

Berlin is definitely a great place, but I feel more comfortable living in Tokyo now.

-tell us about your tokyo

My Tokyo pretty much consists of Aoyama, Shibuya and Nakameguro. I only make occasional excursions into the rest of the city. It’s so vast.

Those areas represent an amazing concentration of creativity – very stimulating. It feels very cold-hearted sometimes, but the role of “outsider” gives you a fascinating perspective on life.

www.aramdikiciyan.com

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Yesterday we gave you the first look at this quite impressive coming together of two names at the pinnacle of their work. Artist Kaws (THE NEW ORDER issue 2) and architect company Wonderwall who are headed by the well known Masamichi Katayama. The outcome is a pair of figures which reflect the relationship between the two, having begun when Wonderwall designed the Original Fake store in Tokyo, Japan. The brick wall finish that is finsihed well in two different colors makes for a really great release.

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KAWS continues to add new figures to his ever growing arsenal, this time collaborating with Masamichi Katayam and his company Wonderwall, the company responsible for the OriginalFake, Tokyo store, amongst so many other high profile stores, from BAPE to colette. The figure will come in 2 versions and measures 22cm in height when it releases February 2010.

Info: HS

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Image: Kaws

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Famed eyewear company Barton Perreira and Barneys New York have teamed up to launch a new line of eyewear inspired by Albert Maysles. Still making films at the age of 83, Maysles is an icon(see our interview The New Order Issue 2), not just for his ability with a camera, but for his own sense of fashion and style. Barton Perreira have released a collection of frames made iconic by the filmmaker over the past 40 years, available exclusively at Barney’s NY. Stay tuned for new colourways available moving into 2010.

Source: Dazed

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As with the Fashion round up posted earlier in the week, there’s no order to this selection.

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Rick Owens is without a doubt one of the most important people in fashion, and any creative arts for that matter, of our era. He has singlehandedly changed the way we look at fashion and given us an insight into his philosophy like no other. His vision is clear, and his message direct. When I interviewed the Paris based designer earlier in the year for The New Order Issue 2, I starred a way from his private life, and for that matter his path to today, in this extract Owens explains.

Extract below from Paris-La

“I had always lived on Southern California. I grew up in Porterville, which is next to Bakersfield. I went to LA to go to college at Parsons, but I didn’t graduate; I was an art school drop-out. I studied fine arts there for two years, but it was too expensive and I didn’t really see a real job ahead. So I went to a two-year program at a trade college learning how to pattern-make with all these Korean ladies – not glamorous. I didn’t grow up in the industry, like Marc Jacobs at Halston and I ended up working for knock-off companies in L.A. I just knocked off patterns for years.”

“It’s funny, Rick always just wanted to have a modest company, and to be independent and comfortable. He just wanted to keep doing what he thought was right. But it would be disingenuous if I said he wasn’t ambitious. In the beginning, I remember him seeking out the best stores he could find while protecting his identity. He didn’t do many fashion spreads. So he worked with just one store in LA, Charles Gallay. He doesn’t do clothes anymore, but he was a fashion pioneer back then. He was the first to carry Versace, Montana, Mugler—all the really extreme stuff. He was the biggest buyer in the world of Margiela’s first season. Rick showed his clothes to him first. Gallay bought them. And he prepaid.”

“I was operating on a real fringe back then. In those days, I was a part of the wicked Hollywood Boulevard hustler bar world. I hung around people like Goddess Bunny, a dwarf friend of mine, and Mr. Beanbag in super sleazy, crystal, tranny hustler bars just off Hollywood Boulevard, a couple of blocks from my studio. Some were involved in the arts and the punk rock scene, people like Glenda. He now has a Born-Again Christian country band, but he does songs like “Hot, Born-Again and Horny.” It’s all really sexual Christian stuff. It’s really funny. He’s a total pervert, one of the most extreme people I know. Then there’s Vaginal Davis. She was around every once in a while. They all fit into my aesthetic of broken idealism. That was my milieu, they were my friends. I call them my ‘baroque pearls’.”

“Michèle Lamy and I met through my boyfriend – one of her best friends. So it’s true that I’m bisexual. It’s supposed to be the other way around, isn’t it? People are against bisexuality. It’s either shit or get off the pot. It would be great if things were that black and white, but life is all about ambiguities, and sometimes you have to make up the rules as you go along. I was introduced to her so I could get a job as a patternmaker. She had a sportswear company. I worked for her for two years, but I could never really understand her because she has a really thick French accent. Then it just kind of happened and I really can’t imagine having a relationship with anyone else. It’s been almost fifteen years. God, who knows what that would be in fag years?”

“And soon she became the restaurateur that people know her as. That’s probably why we have a comfortable relationship: because I need a lot of alone time, but she’s super gregarious. It was perfect because she basically had a party every night and was very consumed by it, while I had privacy. In a way, Michèle and I had the perfect life. Money was tight, but we had a great lifestyle. We had a decent car, had enough to go away on the weekends, and ate the most glamorous dinners every night. And then the Italians contacted me.”

“You know Rick, he’s always been pretty point-blanc about not being conceptual. He says instead that his main concept is that the conceptual is unnecessary, and never a replacement for the minimal and the straight-forward. When explaining it, he compares a William-Adolphe Bouguereau painting with a Brancusi sculpture. Rick Owens is the Brancusi sculpture, you know: just a slab of metal on a hunk of wood, but I guess it’s about the right piece of metal and the perfect gesture.”

“I try to make clothes the way Lou Reed does music – with minimal chord changes,” Owens writes. “It’s about a worn, softened feeling. It’s about an elegance tinged with the barbaric, the sloppiness of something dragging and the luxury of not caring.”

“People are always surprised, you know, as we responded to a global recession with relentless expansion. It just worked out that way. Believe me, there was no master plan but once we saw how well the Paris store was working, we got into a retail fever. For a lot of designers their reward is the walk down the runway, but for me it’s about selling. I’m not that extroverted and I have a very ascetic life now. I like the idea of the line being in stores. I’m more pragmatic. It’s not about the glory for me. Also, I know that my stuff is not very flamboyant or fashiony. It’s almost monotonous. I see fashion as something more permanent, like art or architecture. Designers used to be like that, but not anymore.

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How do you refer to yourself if someone asks “What do you do?”
Umm…. I usually just say I’m a painter. And I treat that as a blue collar, labour job. They call it art “work” right? But then, I don’t like to use the word ‘work’ because I don’t want to get into that mindset that I gotta go to work. I really say, I listen to NPR (National Public Radio) all day… and fuss.

You had a recent show at the Paul Kasmin Gallery entitled Crisis Creation. Can you tell me a bit about it?
I think that Crisis Creation came about as a result from listening to the news a lot. It’s like eight hours of pure crisis. If you look at where we are financially, or the world global market… it’s pretty shitty. But I think a lot of that is spun out to be a crisis when it’s [not]…. I mean, there has to be some good shit happening, right? Or like the whole war on terror – to me, that was a crisis creation. A lot of bad shit happened, but you take it and you spin it in order to sell more ads. Also, introspectively we always feel like we are in a bit of a crisis. But if you take a step back, you realize – 90% of the shit you are worried about, you don’t even HAVE to worry about. There’s nothing you can do ’bout it.

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The latest large scale Kaws Dissected Companion is set for release at the Original Fake Tokyo flagship store on 19th December.  Not many more details at this stage but I would assume that the Medicom Toys produced 4ft figure will be ultra limited and have the $6000 USD price tag that previous companions have had.

Source: High Snobiety

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Kaws Japanese based OriginalFake has hit a huge level of popularity since its inception a few years back. Personally I much prefer the more simple items, the ones featuring core art work from the New York based designer, like this simple tote. The Canvas bags will retail for about US$77 when they release in January at OriginalFake and its stockists.

Source: SENSE via HB

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Well before the high demand fine art, the clothing brand, Original Fake, and even before the vinyl figures, Kaws (Cover Story TNO2) was made famous by his prolific coverage over NYC. This video shows footage of some of the artists earliest work. For those of you who know all about Kaws background, this video is interesting none-the-less, those of you made aware of the high profile artist through his more recent and controlled work, check out where it all came from.

“Exclusive Footage of KAWS tearing it up on the streets of NYC and Tokyo in 1997. This is his first bus-stop in NYC, a bunch of pieces in Tokyo, along with some great commentary by fellow artist Ron English.”

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There doesn’t seem to be anything that can stop the KAWS juggernaut at the moment.  From gallery shows, to clothing, magazine editing, album covers, toys, books and beyond he seems to be one of the few contemporary artists that can manage the fine balance between commerciality, fine art and street culture without compromising his integrity.

His latest project is with Harper’s Bazaar in Korea, and it sees him create a special cover for the publication that features his regular motifs of colourful shapes, cartoon character’s arms and Xs… not unlike the recent Kiehl’s packaging he created. Its great to see his name and influence grow throughout the globe and in continued diverse directions.

Source: HB

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The only condition is you must be following us on Twitter and be a fan of our Facebook fan page to be eligible.

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