Gauntlet Gallery
What is KAWS’s piece called “Supermodel 2”?
Summary
Supermodel 2 is the counterpart to Supermodel 1 in KAWS's appropriation of fashion and luxury advertising imagery. Continuing the artist's early strategy of hijacking glossy commercial photography, the work overlays the seductive aesthetic of supermodel advertising with KAWS's cartoon vocabulary and signature X-eyed defacements. Rendered as a flat graphic with his clean, confident linework, it extends the disruptive gesture that defined his subway-poster and bus-shelter interventions into editioned form. As the second panel of a numbered pairing, Supermodel 2 completes a diptych-style set, embodying the moment KAWS turned the polished surfaces of consumer desire into a platform for his street-rooted subversion of advertising and celebrity culture.
Why It Matters
Supermodel 2 carries the same conceptual weight as its partner: it preserves the appropriation-of-advertising gesture that launched KAWS's career and underlies his entire practice. Before Companion became a global merchandise property, KAWS was an artist who confronted the imagery of consumerism directly — defacing fashion campaigns, luxury ads, and public posters with crossbones and dead-eyed faces. The Supermodel works belong to that critical phase, when his street-derived language was aimed squarely at the seductive machinery of branding and beauty. As the second half of a numbered pair, this piece matters to collectors who understand KAWS through his origins rather than his later character merchandising, and it documents the lineage connecting his graffiti and ad-takeover roots to the blue-chip stature he later attained. It situates KAWS within a broader Pop and appropriation tradition of artists who weaponized advertising imagery, while retaining the raw immediacy that distinguishes his early output.
Collector Perspective
Supermodel 2 is most compelling acquired alongside Supermodel 1, completing the numbered pairing that set-oriented collectors prize. It speaks to buyers who favor KAWS's conceptual, ad-disruption roots over his ubiquitous Companion editions, offering a collection both range and a clear origin story. The fashion-advertising subject gives it an editorial sensibility that hangs well in design-forward or style-conscious interiors, and its relative scarcity compared to mainstream KAWS prints lends it distinction. Within a serious holding it functions as context, grounding the more familiar characters in the appropriation practice from which they emerged.
Historical Context
Like its partner, Supermodel 2 belongs to KAWS's formative period of appropriating and altering advertising, an outgrowth of his late-1990s subway and bus-shelter interventions. This was the era before Companion and Chum were spun off as commercial properties, when KAWS remained in direct dialogue with the consumer imagery he defaced. Fashion and supermodel advertising provided ideal targets for his critique of branding and beauty. The work thus occupies a pivotal point on KAWS's trajectory — from graffiti and ad-takeover artist toward studio editions, designer toys, and ultimately fine-art and monumental recognition — retaining the appropriation-driven impulse at the foundation of his ascent.
FAQ
What is Supermodel 2?
It is the second panel in a numbered pairing applying KAWS's appropriation of fashion and luxury advertising imagery, overlaid with his cartoon characters and X-eyed defacements.
Should it be bought with Supermodel 1?
Collectors typically acquire the two together, as they form a numbered pair.
How does it connect to KAWS's roots?
It continues his subway and bus-shelter ad-takeover practice, redirecting that disruptive gesture toward fashion advertising in editioned form.
Is the edition size known?
We describe it generally as a limited edition and avoid stating a specific size without verified data.
Related Works
About the Artist
KAWS is the working name of Brian Donnelly (b. 1974, Jersey City). He began in the 1990s subverting bus-shelter and phone-booth advertisements, then built a singular visual language around the Companion — a Mickey-Mouse-descended figure with crossed-out X eyes — alongside Chum, BFF, Accomplice and a cast of appropriated cartoon characters. His practice spans paintings, screenprints, vinyl and bronze sculpture, and the monumental KAWS:Holiday installations shown in cities worldwide. His work is held by the Brooklyn Museum, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, and major private collections, and he is among the most collected artists of his generation.