White male mediocrity in art, and why I hate Kaws and Daniel Arsham
In September 2021, Hyperallergic published a review of KAWS: WHAT PARTY at the Brooklyn Museum. It was SCATHING. I loved it. To be completely transparent, I did in fact purchase timed tickets to the exhibition, but wound up standing outside talking to a friend and never actually made it in to see the work. My interest was superficial - I’ve been tired of Kaws for a long time. At his best, he represents a new generation of collectors who have developed an appreciation for accessible and relatively affordable works, or “art toys”. At his worst, he’s a vapid representation of consumerism and bad taste. Those in defense of his work will often draw comparisons to Andy Warhol, which I consider baseless, as Warhol was always upfront about his obsession with celebrity culture, commercialism, and product. Brian Donnelly insults us all by pretending that he’s a manufacturer of icons who subverts and challenges what art can function as. Or, he gives us nothing and leaves it all up to interpretation, which is lazy. The key idea in Pop Art is that no hierarchy of culture should exist, but what if the work had no culture to begin with? Or the culture has been milked and exploited to the point to where it represents absolutely nothing except ambivalence, or soulless capitalism? KAWS is a successful Pop Artist if the criterion for success is based on how many times his website crashes while resellers and hypebeasts clamor to buy collectible plastic toys to sit on Ikea shelves and pair with WET GRASS carpets (RIP Virgil) and Murakami flower pillows. He’s a good artist for people who value aesthetics over taste, or still think that boring white males are contributing anything meaningful to the art history canon. Which brings me to Daniel Arsham.
To start, I’m not a fan of empty space and neutrals as a design choice. It feels like gentrification. (If he wasn't an artist I just know he would be a developer.) Also, “Blurring the lines between art and architecture” reads too much like “intersection of art and technology”. Give me a break. However, I can appreciate the elements of decomposition and decay in his sculptures, and I applaud him for his use of material, and the effort it clearly takes to produce some of his works. I also think the concept of fictional archaeology is interesting and original, but I question if a practice that's so rooted in ephemerality can truly mean anything. Arsham hasn’t drawn many Warhol comparisons, but in an interview about his role as Creative Director of the Cleveland Cavaliers, (so unnecessary, imo) he mentioned how if Andy were alive today he would be the CD of the Knicks, which to me feels like him vying to be tied to his legacy in some way. Arsham’s work would make more sense to me if it could be considered within the context of Fluxus, but his high-end collaborations align him more with a figure like KAWS, who seems to value branding over creativity. It’s because of these luxury collabs that I've begun to take Arsham less seriously as an artist who claims to want to engage new audiences outside of “high-art”. It just reads as lip service, as I'm sure that his tax bracket makes him very aware that it’s impossible to have it both ways; art world elitism does not allow for that. Also, he’s really really boring.
Both Donnelly and Arsham have different artistic styles, but there are core similarities that link them to one another. They’ve both designed album covers for prominent hip hop artists, Arsham for Gunna’s Drip Season 4 and KAWS for Kanye’s iconic 808’s and Heartbreak deluxe version, and are darlings of Streetwear and “hype” culture. They’ve collaborated with Adidas and Jordan Brand, respectively, and if Artsy or Art Forum aren’t writing about them, you can bet Hypebeast and Highsnobiety are. They are quintessential ‘art bros’, creating for the male gaze, ignoring the internal politics of the art world because their whiteness affords them the ability to do so, and succeeding not by sheer talent alone, but ego, artifice, and the idea that they can get away with anything. I am almost tempted to applaud their audacity, but I don’t clap for white men.
