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The Roslyn Times, Friday, March 25, 2016

Blank Slate Media March 25, 2016

By K a r e n Ru b i n In what has become legend, Kenny Scharf, the self-proclaimed “Pop Surrealist,” was a few days away from moving out of his living and work space in Bushwick, Brooklyn, that he called his Cosmic Cavern, and decided to throw the last in a series of parties he had been throwing for years, known as Cosmic Cavern A-Go-Go. On that particular evening, Glori Cohen, an art advisor and collector, happened to be in attendance and told him, “You can’t take this down. This has to be a museum.” And so the artist called the movers and told them he wasn’t going anywhere. The Cosmic Cavern Museum was born. At the opening reception of the exhibit “Kenny Scharf” now on view at the Nassau County Museum of Art through July 10, several of Scharf’s friends were on hand and recalled their experience attending those Bushwick parties in Scharf’s psychedelic basement cavern, where you were barred from entering unless you were also painted in day-glo. Scharf has installed his Day-Glo environments at the 1985 Whitney Biennial, MoMA PS1 in Long Island City, and the Portland Art Museum, Portland Ore., (2015), and will be at MoMA next year. Here at NCMA, the Cosmic Cavern, Closet #29, provides a psychedelic escape. You enter the room-sized installation through black velvet curtains and are transported into a multimedia day-glo, black-light, neon fantastical world of painted and repurposed recycling (some would say garbage) — that brought a sense of delight to everyone who crossed the threshold.

Among the visitors were three young girls walls— but for its surrealist imagery. (Not from Roslyn, Hayden Levy, Izzy Levine, Cam- surprisingly, he had an exhibit, Kenny Scharf; eron Levy, who themselves create abstract art, Pop — Surrealist, in 1997 at the Salvador and pronounced it “awesome” and “favorite- Dali Museum, St. Petersburg, Fla., among his many gallery and museum exhibitions.) ness.” In 2001, Scharf says, he was invited along Indeed, the visitors become part of the art, especially Scharf’s friend and fellow art- with other, predominantly New York artists, ist from Bushwick, Allison Goldenstein, wear- to showcase contemporary art in historical ing a hand-painted dress that seemed to meld spaces Pordenone, Italy, a town named for the Italian mannerist painter, Giovanni da Pordeinto the pop art background. According to Art News, “Cosmic Cav- none (1484-1539). Scharf covered the ern A-Go-Go began at the ceiling with four 33-feet height of the 2008 receslong canvases, which sion, when the artist decidhung there for two years. ed to turn his flood-prone basement into one of the t’s not nostalgic – I When it was time to take works down, much glow-in-the-dark environdid it last week. It’s the had been ruined by piments that have been his geon droppings, so Scharf trademark since the 1980s. what I do. cut the damaged parts Scharf’s Cosmic Cavaway, restretched into new erns had unexceptional Kenny Scharf frames and added layers of beginnings — at the time silkscreen. they were, as he says, “In adding to the actumere ‘Cosmic Closets’— in a room of the apartment near Times Square al physical layer to the painting, this element where he was living with his friend, the late references an increasingly image laden, conartist Keith Haring. “I just started putting gar- fusing world and the effect of a consumer sobage in there and painting it fluorescent, hap- ciety on the environment, another of Scharf’s pened upon a black light, and it just kind of preoccupations,” according to the notes provided for the exhibit, which was curated by started,” says Scharf. Scharf feigns insult when I ask if it is in- Nassau County Museum of Art Director Karl tended as nostalgia. “It’s not nostalgic — I did E. Willers. “While reworking the painting in Los Angeles, Scharf was surrounded by neighit last week. It’s what I do.” Exceedingly approachable and hospitable borhood signs in Arabic and Korean, adding to the waves of fans and friends who came another layer of visual imagery as well as a to the opening Friday, March 18, he spoke at political, pro-diversity message to the work.” Scharf is fond of picking up trash and relength about his own monumental work, “Pop Renaissance” which calls to mind Dali not just cycling ‘found objects’ in his paintings: a gesso for its monumental size — covering all four puddle is poured, objects added, and then

painted. Emerging with the New York City graffiti and street art movement of the 1980s, Kenny Scharf (b. 1958) is known for his vibrantly colorful large-scale paintings and exuberantly playful installations. His imagery draws upon pop icons, media advertising and consumer culture of the 1960s, including TV cartoon characters such as the Flintstones and the Jetsons. Kenny Scharf showcases major paintings and sculptures from throughout the artist’s career. Highlights of this exhibition are the expansive mural Pop Renaissance that surrounds the viewer, a version of the artist’s Cosmic Cavern club-like environment, as well as a re-creation of the artist’s former Brooklyn studio complete with spattered walls, painted furniture and other workspace ephemera. Speaking of his art, Kenny Scharf commented, “I believe the artist has a social responsibility to engage others in a thought process that ultimately brings the creative process into everyday life thereby enhancing the quality of our experience.” Works by Scharf are in the collections of such major New York institutions as the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Guggenheim Museum and the Jewish Museum. Internationally, works by Scharf have been collected by Mexico’s Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Monterrey; the Ludwig Museum in Cologne, Germany; and the Stedelijk Museum of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. A companion exhibition, Glamorous Graffiti, looks at the work of Kenny Scharf’s contemporaries in the exciting New York graffiti and street art movement of the 1980s. In Continued on Page 25