Kenny Scharf

Kenny Scharf, the ultimate club kid, Kenny Scharf, the Beverly Hills High School beachbunny, became an artist! It must simply have been in his blood, and that was the way it was in New York at the beginning of the "80s, when his friends were Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, and sprayed one's way through the ladies" rooms, clubs and streets up into the higher echelons of the art scene. Today Scharf's studio is a complete synthesis of the arts, his friends are a hip courtly state, and the customized design of his life changes according to the personal whims of the artist. Kenny spent some time in Bahia, got to know the country, the people and his wife, Teresa, and discovered nature as a theme. Thus the beat of the samba entered his pictures, his art developed ecological aspects, evolving in the direction of "eco-pop". In his "Jungle Book", Kenny has his own pictures confront documentary photos of environmental destruction in Brazil. After the end of the wild "80s and the deaths of his friends Haring from AIDS and Basquiat from drugs, Kenny Scharf became less outwardly celebratory. His art now quotes American pop art, he makes collages reminiscent of Rauschenberg and Warhol, and has become selfcritical and political. Just as acid house and rave music combine the rhythms of original American soul and blues with reggae to make breath-taking club mixes, so functions Kenny Scharf's art. His glass signals a return to the early joy and fun of his original statement. Enjoy.