The one and only Kenny Scharf! Kenny was a core and influential Club 57 member back in the days.It was nice that he took the time to come over in the afternoon of the day of The Club 57 Art Show to paint on the wall. He was extremely busy at this time completing the final touches on a gallery show at the The Hole Gallery at 104 Greene Street called "Hot Glue Hullabaloo". It was a collaboration between Kenny and the Virginia Beach art collective Dearraindrop. The theme was lots of paintings, sculpture and a mini-black light disco all held together by some hot glue gunning action. This show was actually happening the very next night and Kenny was really pressed for time. It was amazing to watch him work. He didn't sketch out the design at all. He set up the wall, put newspaper all around to protect what needed protection, whipped out spray paint cans out of a box and went into action. He took a pause, found a point and started spraying, switching from one can of colour to another. Working with extreme concentration, he quickly created his iconic happy colourful creatures. Before I knew it, he was done and ready to go back to the Greene Street gallery. I barely had time to get any photos of him before he was out the door.
This is how Kenny is these days. He has always been busy, but for me it is a kind of rebirth of Kenny Scharf. I remember Kenny from the Club 57/80s days along with Keith Haring. Kenny made an impact on the art world with his pop colourful cartoon paintings and unique installations. Things (my opinion) seem to have come full circle and I see that Kenny is in a whirlwind of activity. Along with Keith Haring in the 80s, he created the first of the black light installations called "Cosmic Closet" in the closet of their Times Square apartment, which evolved into (with many other downtown artists of that time) the infamous Times Square show. It went onto to become "Cosmic Caverns", which was exhibited at the Whitney Biennial and lots of galleries throughout the world. Kenny has gone back to that original idea and reincarnated it into "Cosmic Caver". He and Scott Ewait created this installation in Kenny's Brooklyn building's basement. Nonstop parties happened there for 8 months. To complete this circle, Kenny has now gone onto do something I consider really special. He has completed a mural on the Bowery mural wall on Houston and Bowery in New York City. This wall has a lot of history. Keith Haring did his first giant wall mural there in 1982. Kenny went onto do a mural with Fun Gallery Artists later that year. This mural wall has had it's share of recent controversies, but now Kenny transformed this wall into an incredible piece of work that deserves a large amount of documentation. Truly wonderful work! Please click on the highlighted Bowery mural wall above. It will take you to some photos of the wall. Kenny's Bowery mural project was produced by Tony Goldman and The Hole and they plan to continue with making presentations on this historic wall.
To make things even more complete, Kenny noticed the Dorian Grey Gallery in the East Village. It is located across the street where Kenny used to live during his Club 57 days. He showed up unexpectantly one night at the gallery and swiftly painted the front gate of the gallery. The Club 57 Art Show was held at a bar called Niagara on 7th Street and Avenue A in the East Village. I hope to go there in 100 years and still see Kenny's work on the wall. Please click on any highlighted areas above to find out further information about the subjects.