Artist KAWS Takes Over SFMOMA's Rooftop with Monumental Inflatable Sculpture

KAWS: FAMILY
November 15, 2025–May 3, 2026

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (October 16, 2025)–After stops in Australia, Europe and Asia, the artist KAWS will bring his popular monumental inflatable sculpture project, HOLIDAY, to the rooftop of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) for a limited time starting in November 2025. The nearly 36-foot-tall inflatable sculpture depicts COMPANION—a recurring character in the work of KAWS—and is part of the artist’s ongoing international KAWS: HOLIDAY project organized with AllRightsReserved. The San Francisco installation marks the 14th stop of the HOLIDAY project and is presented in celebration of the artist’s first major West Coast museum exhibition, KAWS: FAMILY, on view at SFMOMA from November 15, 2025, through May 3, 2026.

“KAWS has a distinct appeal to a vast array of audiences with his iconic characters and meticulous work in a stunning range of mediums,” said Christopher Bedford, Helen and Charles Schwab Director of SFMOMA. “The playful and contemplative works—a dynamic blend of his street art practice and formal education—offer something for everyone. His large-scale public installations have wowed audiences worldwide, and his playful and poignant retrospective exhibition promises to connect museum visitors with art in entirely new ways.”

To date, the KAWS: HOLIDAY installations have brought together more than 20 million people around the globe. Previous sites for the ambitious sculpture project include Hong Kong, Doha and Melbourne, as well as locations in Indonesia, Switzerland, and the UK, among others. The free public art installation on SFMOMA’s rooftop will be easily viewable for visitors to San Francisco’s downtown and the Yerba Buena Gardens and surrounding Cultural Benefit District.

KAWS: FAMILY EXHIBITION HIGHLIGHTS

KAWS: FAMILY, organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) and on view at SFMOMA from November 15, 2025–May 3, 2026, is a dazzling exploration of the multidimensional work of KAWS. After spending his teenage years painting graffiti in the streets of Jersey City and Manhattan, KAWS eventually enrolled in the School of Visual Arts (SVA) where he received his BFA in illustration in 1996. Since that time, the artist has carved a unique position for himself in the art world, creating a globally recognized practice including sculpture, paintings, drawing, product design, large-scale public works and augmented reality.

Featuring more than 100 artworks from the past three decades, the KAWS: FAMILY exhibition is curated by Julian Cox, deputy director & chief curator, AGO. The SFMOMA presentation is curated by Daryl McCurdy, curatorial associate, architecture and design, SFMOMA. In San Francisco, the exhibition is presented as a series of encounters, with families of related artworks installed throughout SFMOMA’s Floor 4.

KAWS’s multidisciplinary practice is frequently centered around a cast of characters whose features are drawn from icons of American animation and pop culture and inspired by his early practice of altering phone booth and bus shelter advertisements with his unique visual language. Recasting and reimagining his distinctive and relatable artistic lexicon, KAWS produces scrupulous and exuberant works that investigate our connection to objects and one another. The figures he creates are at once playful and serious, and in their various poses, forms and sizes, explore distinctly human emotions ranging from loneliness and anxiety to grief and joy.

The exhibition takes its title and thematic jumping-off point from the work FAMILY (2021), a bronze sculpture featuring three recurring characters in KAWS’s work. The grouping includes COMPANION; a bulbous figure named CHUM; and a fur-covered character named BFF—posed together in the style of a studio portrait.

Alongside sculptures, drawings and paintings, the exhibition showcases KAWS’s ongoing engagement with design and fashion brands. KAWS’s commitment to making his work widely accessible is demonstrated in a selection of shoe designs, cereal boxes, album covers and a loveseat composed of plush toys made in collaboration with Brazilian design studio Estúdio Campana. These commercial works share the same dedication to bold color and strong lines seen in the artist’s paintings and sculptures and have helped KAWS gain a large and dedicated global following.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

KAWS (Brian Donnelly) was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 1974. Over the last three decades he has built a successful career with work that consistently shows his formal agility as an artist, as well as his underlying wit, irreverence and affection for the current cultural moment. His practice possesses a sophisticated humor and thoughtful interplay with consumer products and collaborations with global brands, ranging from General Mills and Nike, to Supreme and Comme de Garçons. He often draws inspiration from and appropriates pop culture animations to form a unique artistic vocabulary for his work across a variety of media.

KAWS has exhibited extensively throughout the United States and internationally. Recent solo exhibitions of his work have been presented at institutions such as Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville; the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; The Parrish Art Museum, Watermill, New York; The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; the Serpentine Gallery, London, UK; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Brooklyn Museum, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Fire Station, Qatar Museums, Doha; Mori Arts Center Gallery, Tokyo; the Yuz Museum, Shanghai; and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas. He is represented by Skarstedt Gallery and Galerie Max Hetzler.

TICKETS

Member Pre-sale: Tuesday, September 30, 2025

General Public ticket sale: Tuesday, October 14, 2025

More information at sfmoma.org/exhibition/kaws-family

CATALOGUE
KAWS: FAMILY is accompanied by a 156-page, fully illustrated hardcover catalogue co-published by the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) and Delmonico Books. Featuring an essay by Julian Cox, AGO deputy director and chief curator, and an interview with KAWS by Jim Shedden, AGO curator of special projects and director of publishing, the publication is available in person at the SFMOMA Museum Store or at museumstore.sfmoma.org.

MUSEUM STORE

The dedicated KAWS Museum Pop-Up Store located on SFMOMA’s Floor 4 will feature a curated mix of products, including KAWS collectibles as well as an assortment of exclusive apparel, posters and other limited-edition items available only at SFMOMA. Sign up here to get updates on KAWS: FAMILY—including exclusive toy drops and ticket alerts.

ORGANIZATION

KAWS: FAMILY is organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) and curated by Julian Cox, deputy director & chief curator, AGO. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) presentation is curated by Daryl McCurdy, curatorial associate, architecture and design, SFMOMA.

SUPPORT

Lead support for KAWS: FAMILY is provided by the Phyllis C. Wattis Fund for Traveling Exhibitions.

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Image Credits:

KAWS, FAMILY, 2021; private collection; © KAWS