KAWS HOLIDAY STOP 1: HOLIDAY KOREA
Released in July 2018, the KAWS:HOLIDAY Korea Companion translates one of the artist’s most iconic sculptural gestures—the reclining figure—into an intimate, handheld format. Measuring approximately 8.5 inches, the figure presents the Companion stretched horizontally, arms extended, body relaxed, eyes closed beneath the signature X-marks.
Unlike the standing or seated iterations of the character, this version introduces a rare sense of stillness. The posture is neither playful nor melancholic—it is suspended somewhere between rest and surrender. The simplified anatomy, reduced to soft cylindrical limbs and a rounded skull, reinforces this impression of quiet detachment. In this format, Companion becomes less a character and more a state.
Introduction
This edition accompanied the inaugural chapter of the KAWS:HOLIDAY project, conceived in collaboration with AllRightsReserved. The event took place in Seoul, where a monumental 92-foot inflatable Companion was installed on Seokchon Lake, reclining on its back as if adrift.
The image was immediate and powerful: a figure associated with urban culture and commercial imagery suddenly occupying public space at an almost absurd scale—serene, immobile, and contemplative. It marked a decisive expansion of KAWS’s practice into site-specific, globally circulating installations, designed to engage audiences far beyond the traditional gallery system.
The collectible figure was released simultaneously through KAWSONE, priced at approximately $153, and offered in three restrained colorways: brown, grey, and black. While often described as an open edition, its availability was effectively time-bound to the event, creating a hybrid model between accessibility and scarcity.
Produced in painted vinyl, the figure was notably marketed as a bath toy, a detail that is both humorous and conceptually precise. This functional framing aligns directly with the installation itself: a floating body, suspended in water, stripped of narrative urgency.
The material treatment is intentionally matte and subdued, avoiding any unnecessary gloss or spectacle. The color palette—muted, almost introspective—contrasts with earlier, more vibrant releases, reinforcing the contemplative tone of the work.
The reclining Companion introduces a subtle but important shift in KAWS’s visual language. Historically, the character often appears hunched, withdrawn, or self-conscious. Here, it is fully extended—open, exposed, yet oddly at peace.
There is an ambiguity to this posture. It may suggest rest, but also inertia; calm, but also absence. The closed eyes—rendered through the X—can be read as a gesture of withdrawal from the world, a refusal of engagement. In the context of a floating installation, this ambiguity becomes even more pronounced: is the figure drifting, or has it simply let go?
The bath toy format adds a second layer of irony. What is presented as a playful object is, in essence, a distilled version of a monumental public artwork. KAWS collapses scale, function, and meaning into a single gesture—turning a poetic installation into something that can quite literally float in a bathtub.
As the first release in the HOLIDAY series, the Korea edition carries a foundational importance. It established the core principles of the project: a traveling format, a monumental installation in a public or natural environment, and an accompanying collectible object that echoes the experience.
Subsequent chapters—Taipei, Hong Kong, Mount Fuji, Bristol, Singapore—would expand on this formula, but Korea remains the conceptual origin point. It is where the idea of Companion as a global, nomadic presence first took shape.
Despite its initial accessibility, the Korea Companion has become one of the most desirable pieces within the HOLIDAY lineage. Its significance lies not in rarity alone, but in its position as the genesis object of a now iconic series. More broadly, the work encapsulates a critical moment in KAWS’s career: the transition from gallery-centered production to large-scale public engagement, without abandoning the collectible format that underpins his market success.
It is, in essence, a paradox resolved with elegance—a monumental idea, reduced to the scale of the hand, yet retaining its quiet, disarming power.
HOLIDAY KOREA (Brown)
HOLIDAY KOREA (Brown)
Medium: Painted cast vinyl
Year: 2018
Dimensions: 22x20x6 cm (8-1/2 x 8 x 2-1/4 inches)
Edition: Limited run, unknown size, unnumbered
Produced by AllRightsReserved Ltd., Hong Kong.
HOLIDAY KOREA (Grey)
HOLIDAY KOREA (Grey)
Medium: Painted cast vinyl
Year: 2018
Dimensions: 22x20x6 cm (8-1/2 x 8 x 2-1/4 inches)
Edition: Limited run, unknown size, unnumbered
Produced by AllRightsReserved Ltd., Hong Kong.
