Undercover Meets Kaws – 1999 Artwork
By now, Kaws needs no introduction.
The Brooklyn-based artist has been a cultural phenomenon for years now, being embedded in street culture to the point now where he himself is a global brand. Known for his often vibrant, otherworldly, and cartoonish creations, Kaws sits in between the space of sophisticated design and a child’s fantasy. From canvas paintings and street art to humongous sculptures, his art spans a wide variety of mediums each equally garnering a heavy crowd of hungry art consumers.
Although now, Kaws is a very much commercialized artist [and there is nothing wrong with this], you must still pay respect to the impact he’s had on both art and streetwear. Starting as a humble graffiti artist, since then Brian Donnelly, AKA Kaws has collaborated with the likes of A Bathing Ape, Comme Des Garcons, Medicom, Supreme, and one of our personal favourites, Undercover.
In 1999, Kaws and Undercover came together to release a series of artworks to commemorate Kaws’ involvement in Undercover’s spring/summer 2000’s capsule. In this series of artworks consisting of 5 prints, Kaws merges and familiarizes real-life people with his traditional cartoonish characters. Playfully using his signature motifs as a child’s bag and toy, replacing the faces of Samurai’s, a martial arts duo, and adding in a lava lamp-like effect as a pattern in some of the backgrounds.
These set of posters would only be the start of Jun Takahashi and Kaws’ partnership, as they continued to release frequent drops of clothing together donning Kaws’ signature characters, fusing them with the Undercover branding; they even released a companion figure together, with the Bear character form Undercover the Kaws companion character.
