Untitled (MBFG4)

KAWS’ artworks are notable for their inclusion of familiar cartoons and other images from popular culture, making their subject matter immediately identifiable. By featuring well-known characters, in this case, Snoopy from Charles M. Schultz’s comic strip Peanuts, KAWS’ artistic narrative transcends class, gender, and cultural boundaries in a universal language. Viewing this representation of a classic children’s comic, one calls to mind their own memories and associations with Snoopy, an individual relationship that KAWS explores throughout the body of his work. This Snoopy, rendered three times on a single canvas with KAWS’ signature “x” eyes, displays the graphic identity and street culture symbols which KAWS is well-known for. Other characters featured throughout the sculptures, prints, and paintings of KAWS are the Smurfs, the Simpsons (renamed Kimpsons), and SpongeBob SquarePants. Snoopy is particularly significant, given KAWS’ recent participation in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 2012, which usually features Peanuts characters. Peanuts, which ran from 1950 to 2000, with 17,897 strips published in total, starred the beloved beagle Snoopy alongside his human companion, Charlie Brown. KAWS continuously returned to this image, because of its familiar quality as an icon of American culture for over fifty years.