Kenny Scharf : When Worlds Collide (2020)
December 24th, 2021 by Mr. C
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This movie was an inspiring look into the life & art world of Kenny Scharf! We’ve always enjoyed the murals painted by him when we randomly stumbled across them while combing the streets of the dirty NYC. His art seemed to bring all his painted subjects to life even the inanimate ones! I had no idea Kenny’s background stretched back to days spent with Keith Haring, Jean Michel Basquiat, & Andy Warhol. All four of these folks along with all the graffiti writers of the time transformed the street art & culture of lower manhattan unto a world of its own! The documentary really sets apart his friendship with Haring and how influential he was in his life no matter how polar opposites they seemed to be. I admired how competitive they were with each other in the art sense and the School of Visual arts in Manhattan seemed to be the breeding ground.
I loved how the center of Scharf’s life revolved around his family and his connection to his own self no matter how dark things got like in 1980s NYC or when he lost Haring to AIDS in 1990. You can tell he was a very well rounded & grounded individual.
I also enjoyed the fact that Kenny Scharf was able to tell his own story along with his wife & kids! As a matter of fact the director of this documentary was Malia Scharf, Kenny’s daughter!
The doc followed Kenny around to his studio in L.A. during current times as well as providing amazing archival video, still, & sound footage from the 1980s with Haring, Basquiat ,and the likes! The film goes on to extrapolate Scharf’s thirst for abstract expressionism & nuclear annhilation in the art realm. His canvas was literally everything including everyday inanimate objects which he brought to life! He was in love with nature and incorporated it in his paintings. He was also a fan of cartoons and the Jetsons which he frequently incorporated into his pieces! Cartoony subjects made art more accessible & fun according to Scharf. Of course along with the light hearted & fun times in his life, there were plenty of dark shadows that inhabited his mind as well from his experience in NYC in the 1980s & early 1990s in specific to the club scene in NY at the time. AIDS also annihilated 1/3 of his creative friends around him. His witnessing of his dear friend Keith Haring taking his very last breath while he held his hand was a very emotional part of the film as Scharf retold the story in the documentary. All these experiences good & bad manifested into his work.
Kenny described his art very well in the film. He has the syndrome of seeing faces in everything! Everything is a person and everything has a personality. Even objects not living or breathing has a personality & a face to them! He also gives a lot of credit to the graffiti artists for making art accessible to everyone. Art should be for everybody not just in the art gallery. The street was the main way to communicate.
As if his skill & being wasn’t enough, Scharf also had many layers to his art. He made animation & video performance art. Merger & fusion of fine art culture & pop culture is what Kenny truly is! He loves to advertise free thinking & directed it right at the people!
As for the current Kenny Scharf, he seems happy to still create his art in his studio in L.A. alongside his wife & kids! Now he is obsessed with garbage, plastic garbage in specific – taking the discarded, unwanted & turning it into something! The film describes Kenny very well. He is a showman, a performance artist, an emcee of the art realm. It’s not about being a star or being famous. It’s just about being an artist.
When worlds collide was Scharf’s piece from 1985. In the documentary, he visited his painting which he hasn’t seen since those times.
When Worlds Collide piece by Kenny Scharf from 1985 (oil and paint on canvas)
“Everything is existing at the same time, tranquility & chaos can coexist.” – Kenny Scharf
Tags: documentary, graffiti, kenny scharf, street art, when worlds collide
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