Kaws' Hong Kong Holiday

A new guy is in town and he's floating in Victoria Harbour now

We have a new visitor in town. He's a giant 37-metre long inflatable sculpture called Kaws that's literally floating in Victoria Harbour from now until March 31.

Kaws is the nom de plume for artist Brian Donnelly, a New York-based artist and designer who started off doing graffiti in Jersey City, New Jersey. He has admitted in interviews that Kaws doesn't have a particular meaning.

This piece, called Kaws:Holiday, is sponsored by the Hong Kong Tourism Board and Asia Miles. It is reminiscent of the bright yellow rubber duck by Florentijn Hofman back in 2013, but will this grey-coloured character called Companion upstage the cute duck?

It's strange that Kaws was chosen to do this art installation, when just a few weeks earlier a giant floral statue of Companion was erected in The Landmark's atrium as part of a collaboration with artistic director Kim Jones on French fashion label Dior's summer 2019 collection.

The inflated sculpture is 37 metres long

Kaws seems too commercialized now in terms of artistic merit. Last summer the artist collaborated with Uniqlo for the Kaws x Sesame Street collection, and he has also put his design on reimagined Jordan 4s and Yeezys footwear collection.

But hey does it matter? Our taxpayer dollars are being used to pay in part for Kaws to bring this giant thing over and cheer us up.

He also has an exhibition at PMQ until April 14. It's a Kaws invasion of Hong Kong!