[Gallery Stroll] Two Characters Named Friend Grasp Each Other by the Neck

KAWS “Friends and Neighbors”
The Discomfort of Relationships Hidden Beneath the X-Eyed Cuteness

Two black characters stand as if embracing each other. But upon closer look, it is not a hug. One arm wraps near the other’s neck, while the other hand pushes away the body. Their bodies are rounded and smooth like toys, but their posture is far from gentle. Both have eyes closed in an X-shape. It’s impossible to tell if they’re smiling, angry, or hurt. In front of KAWS’ new sculpture “Neck and Neck,” the first impression is one of surprise. Why are these friends fighting at such close quarters?

Exhibition view of KAWS' Friends and Neighbors. Space K

The exhibition “Friends and Neighbors,” KAWS’ first solo show at a Korean art museum, opens in Space K Seoul in Gangseo-gu, Seoul. The exhibition runs from July 23 to December 27. It features more than 20 paintings and sculptures. KAWS, whose real name is Brian Donnelly, began his career in the 1990s with New York street graffiti and interventions in advertising. He has gone on to blur the line between pop culture and fine art, spanning art toys, fashion, public art, and institutional exhibitions.

KAWS’ work is hardly unfamiliar to Korean audiences. From the giant Companion floating on Seokchon Lake, to Uniqlo T-shirts and collaborative figures and merchandise, his X-eyed characters became famous outside the museum long ago. There has always been an easy way to describe KAWS—a street artist who stepped into the museum, a creator oscillating between commodity and art, a pop art-era superstar. None of that is wrong, but faced with this exhibition, such descriptions fall a bit short. What matters is not how famous his characters are, but why these well-known figures are now pushing and pulling one another.

The exhibition is titled “Friends and Neighbors.” A friend is someone you choose to be close to; a neighbor is someone you just end up near. Both words sound warm, but reality isn’t always so gentle. Friends hurt one another because expectations run high. Neighbors unsettle us simply by their proximity. In interviews, KAWS has said that his perspective on people changed through recent years of political tension and the COVID-19 pandemic, and those emotions carried over into this work. In that sense, this show is about the social lives of his cute characters.

At the center is CHUM. Even the name means friend, companion, or someone close. This character, reminiscent of the Michelin Man with its round, inflated body, appears in playgrounds, yards, and interiors throughout the exhibit. The settings are all seemingly safe spaces—places where children play, neighbors pass by, family memories accumulate. Yet even here, the figures grab and push one another. In “Red Ball,” two characters entangle as if scuffling in a playground. It might just be a tussle over a ball, or perhaps a crack in a longstanding relationship. Childhood playgrounds are where friendships are formed, but also where you first learn about turns, possession, and exclusion.

Artist Kaws posing in front of the artwork. Space K

KAWS calls his characters “muses.” As portrait artists return to the same model, he continuously revisits figures like Companion, CHUM, and Accomplice. The difference lies not in facial expressions but posture. The X-shaped eyes conceal emotion. It’s the tilted torso, outstretched arm, gripped neck, physical distance, or the angle at which figures avoid looking at each other in shared space that reveal feeling. The quieter the faces, the more the bodies say.

This is why sculpture and painting are shown together. Black bronze sculptures erase color but preserve form. “Looking Far Away” and “Measuring The Shadow,” seated on plinths like classical statuary, embody less stability than unease. The Companion gazing into the distance sits as if belonging nowhere, while the Accomplice with rabbit ears appears to be trying to measure its own shadow. A shadow can’t be measured. Nor, often, can the anxieties that come with close relationships. They are visible, but impossible to grasp.

The paintings, by contrast, are a burst of color. CHUMs in red, blue, pink, and green pack the canvases. The vivid hues communicate emotions easily, but the scenes are hardly simple. In “Healing,” eleven CHUMs each hold a canvas painted with the sea. Viewed individually, they’re separate works. From a distance, they combine into a single ocean. Healing here is not achieved alone. Only when the pieces fit together does a horizon appear. Even then, this sea is not entirely serene. In KAWS’ world, solace is not a feeling that follows resolution, but a moment placed alongside conflict.

The surface is particularly intriguing. Recent works feature pronounced speckled textures—like analog TV noise, print dots, or the residue of old graffiti spray. KAWS has rekindled spray techniques from his early paintings, gradually stepping away from the strict hard-edge style that’s defined two decades of his work. Now, a little visual noise slips into his signature clarity. KAWS’ paintings remain sleek, but are no longer pristine.

Healing, 2025, Acrylic on canvas, in 3 parts, 218.4 x 655.3 cm. Space K

To read this exhibition solely as KAWS’ “entry into the museum” is to miss the point. He arrived long ago; the Brooklyn Museum, the Serpentine Gallery, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Andy Warhol Museum, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art have all hosted him. The issue isn’t arrival, but transformation. The story of museums belatedly affirming imagery popularized by the public is outdated. Instead, this exhibition poses the reverse: can a universally known image still feel new inside the museum?

The answer lies in relationships. KAWS’ characters were first consumed because of their cuteness, and easily overlooked because of their familiarity. Yet in “Friends and Neighbors,” that very familiarity becomes a trap. The closer someone is, the more often you clash. A neighbor isn’t some distant other—they’re the discomfort right behind your wall. A friend offers comfort, but is also a rival, an accomplice, close enough to grab you by the neck.

Stepping outside the gallery, what stays with you is not the X-eyes, but the hands: the hand wrapped around a neck, the hand pushing away over a ball, the hands holding individual seas. Perhaps what KAWS has crafted all these years is not faces, but gestures. Cuteness was the wrapping that delayed us from noticing those gestures. “Friend” and “neighbor” are beautiful words, but it is in the closest places that conflict begins first. For once, KAWS’ characters are no longer hiding that truth. The exhibition runs through December 27.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.