KENNY SCHARF

This shows why he has such a pressing need to fill them, in an endlessly repeating all-over effect. This term clearly calls to mind Jackson Pollock, of whom Kenny Scharf is a big fan. ‘He marked the beginning of the expansion of another space. All-over painting confirms the extension of a world. It’s a background I can use, and sometimes I even throw paint on the canvas. I also like the way every detail reveals itself as a little window onto a huge universe, which could escape outside the painting. I perceive my paintings as fragments of unlimited bewilderment.’ From the idea of the rhizome, a very visual concept of roots leading to others, we are thrust back into the history of American abstract expressionism, which still inspires artists today. In fact, Kenny Scharf digs even deeper for his inspiration, with reminiscences of Arshile Gorky or Jean Dubuffet, who represented their psychological state in very dense paintings. Since the exhibition is in Paris, potential connections to the French scene come to mind. This suggestion led Kenny Scharf to recall that his work was shown in the 1980s alongside that of François Boisrond, Robert Combas, Hervé Di Rosa, and the Frères Ripoulin, who were connected with the Figuration Libre movement and graffiti. Scharf remembers this as a pop-rock scene with which he had stylistic affinities, even if he hasn’t seen them in three decades.

Ultimately, the important thing is always to work and create. Today, for example, Scharf paints a mushroom in a wild forest filled with naked people. He is perhaps in a less playful mood. He feels more inclined to expand a somewhat surrealistic world where images connected to galaxies are combined with depictions that evoke viruses or are simply formal, verging on abstraction. There are fewer clearly established connections with identified or recognised characters. In this way, he pursues a joyful dystopia or a disillusioned utopia, fluctuating between various emotions. Often, in fact, strength flirts with brutality, the warm colours become acid, and the vanishing lines jostle us or carry us off to an unknown universe, led by figures with sardonic smiles. Kenny Scharf describes himself as a politically committed artist, especially in this year of the American election and popular uprisings. Thoughtfully, he concludes that ‘real life is always more intense’ (a subtle tribute to Robert Filliou?). He remains deeply filled with the energy of the West Coast, where he has lived for twenty years and where he was born. While Los Angeles seems to be inhabited by individuals who circulate in isolation in their cars, moments of rebellion show a population rising up as it finds a shared destiny. Kenny Scharf feels the vitality of the collective and the elation of being in the right place, which he will interpret, one way or another, in his art.

Text by Marie Maertens, December 2020. Courtesy Almine Rech.