The Standard Hotel’s KAWS Célèbre

THE STANDARD’S LIGHTBULBS (LEFT, RIGHT); BRIAN DONNELLY (CENTER)
PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE STANDARD HOTEL

The Standard Hotel enterprise has never been the type to stick to safe “hotel art.” Who could forget the commissioned video piece by Marco Brambilla collaging pop culture video clips to portray an ascent from Hell to Heaven that screened in the New York outpost’s elevators, and eventually spawned a collaboration between Brambilla and Kanye West? Or the risqué Olivier Zahm photographs from nights stayed at the hotel that pop up from time to time on Purple Diary? And a quick glance through the Editorial Gallery of the Standard Hotel’s website will yield a spectacularly NSFW compilation of images taken by cream of the crop fashion photographers and heavy hitters in the modeling industry.
 
The New York, Miami, and Los Angeles branches have reached out to yet another familiar New York-based artist, Brian Donnelly, known professionally under the moniker KAWS. But this time, the collaboration has yielded a more accessible product. Donnelly has created a limited-edition lightbulb set to be sold at the Standard Hotel retail shops. The filament bulbs, sold in packs of three (red, purple, and green), contain the iconic “XX” KAWS signature. Only one thousand sets are available at each location, and fans of the artist can pick up a pack of three for a cool $65—a stepping stone, maybe, to your own Marco Brambilla piece.