KENNY SCHARF
b. 1958, United StatesKenny Scharf (b. 1958, Los Angeles, California) attended Manhattan’s School ofVisual Arts and came of age in the 1980s New York downtown art scene alongside his contemporaries Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. A painter and performer inhabiting the visual worlds of both street art and popular culture, Scharf’s graffiti paintings gained him notoriety and established a vernacular language all his own. Often working with improvisation, he creates playful, gestural pieces that blend stylised motifs with references to the surreal, science fiction, and icons of popular culture. Many of his larger works still adorn New York streets to this day.
Scharf was included in the 1985 Whitney Biennial and again in their show FastForward: Painting from the 1980s in 2017. His work has been exhibited at theMuseum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York; the Hammer Museum in LosAngeles; the Miami Center for the Fine Arts, Florida; and the Queens Museum ofArt, New York, among others. His work is held in the permanent collections of theMuseum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, The Whitney Museum of AmericanArt, New York, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), The Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Broad Foundation, Los Angeles, and TheJewish Museum, New York, in addition to others worldwide.
Scharf lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
Text courtesy TOTAH.
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