The cops are hunting for a thirty-one-year-old career criminal dubbed Enno ‘LEWY’ Tianen on suspicion that he is the very sticky-fingered chap who stole a $100,000 KAWS painting from the hallways of Marc Ecko’s Complex Magazine offices last month. The suspect has a history of assault and theft charges, there’s only one shocking detail about the alleged thief… Read more »
Last week, someone with a really bad mustache and possibly armed with some inside info, broke into Marc Ecko’s offices on West 23rd street and stole a Kaws painting valued at $100k that was hanging in the hallway like a cheap poster. Read more »
Someone stole an expensive KAWS painting that was hanging in the hallways of Marc Ecko’s offices. The thief signed in as “Nat Heller,” entered the security code to get to the second floor, smashed the fiberglass, rolled up the work into a tube and took off on 23rd street, but not before getting snapped by the elevator camera with loot in hand.
At this point, Kaws could put his XXs on tampon dispensers and they would sell or in this case, light bulbs. Hip hotel chain The Standard, is selling the limited edition incandescents as a set of three for only $65. So what was his inspiration? “I love The Standard and the different projects they have been doing,” said Kaws, and “when invited to create something I wanted to redesign something basic that could be found in every hotel room in the world so we decided to make a light bulb.” Also, presumably because it required little thought and he got paid a lot of money.
Kaws, an artist who used to reappropriate images from major corporations without their permission, collaborates with them now instead, just like other streetwear brands. His latest partnership is with Disney and for me, like graffiti writers painting legal walls, there’s something weak about obtaining permission from the companies that should be getting knocked-off. Then again, if his art basically consists of putting an X on someone else’s character, maybe it’s the only way for him to make work? |High Snobiety|
After thoroughly altering just about every body part on Kim Kardashian, Complex magazine’s heavy-handed retouchers have once again returned to work their Photoshop magic…on Lindsay Lohan’s freckles. Observe. Taken from the same photo shoot: (left) Untouched Lindsay, (right) Complex Lindsay. Apparently, the photographers agree, calling it a “Photoshop Frankenstein nightmare,” although it’s unclear if they’re talking about the retouching or Kaws’ artwork.
As Lohan surrenders to the authorities in a cloud of glitter, here’s her “new” photo shoot for Complex magazine that’s at least as old as May and they still couldn’t manage to flag her down for an interview—there goes their shot at the Pulitzer. See her vamp it up with KAWS paws and toys above.
Mike Leavitt has scaled down some familiar artists. Behold, the Art Army: a bizarre Mark Ryden, a dissected Damien Hist, a masked Banksy, a be-bucketed Shepard Fairey and more. Read more »
Over the weekend, Sotheby’s auctioned off the half dozen artist-styled road bikes Lance Armstrong has been racing this year. Part of an awareness effort for the STAGES art show now on view at Deitch Projects, the Trek bike sale brought in more than $1.2 million for the cyclist’s cancer-fighting efforts. Read more »
Although he wasn’t allowed to scribble on the cover like he did for Jalousse, i-D, and Complex, French Vogue did ask KAWS to add his illustrative style to a few pages of a fashion editorial shot by house photographer Mario Sorrenti. The horribly named “Graffi-Couture” photo shoot features emaciated models standing in front of, well, graffiti, because that’s so in again. See the rest of the mostly unremarkable shoot here.
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