All language subtitles for Kenny.Scharf.When.Worlds.Collide.2020.720p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX].eng

Provided by explosiveskull
https://twitter.com/kaboomskull

Thank you, thank you.

Our country...

Come on, start already,
I'm bored.

I just do it,
I don't plan it,

I don't draw it out.

I just take a brush or a spray
can on a white canvas and...

I feel... I don't feel
it's from a particular source,

I think it's from
all sources, and...

It's just a mixture
of everything.

And most of the time
it's just out of my head,

I just imagine this image
and just paint from there.

Sometimes I get ideas
from other things,

but basically
it's from my imagination.

I'm just expressing...
inside,

just try to, I guess,
make great things.

I'm an artist...
I don't really think I had

much of a choice,
I just am,

born that way, I don't know
what else I could've done.

That was the serious
art world,

and at that time any kind of
goofy, whimsical come into

the art world
and sort of shake it up.

Mad-Glad-Man?

- Glad... and Mad...
- The Mad-Glad-Man.

In the early 1980's,
Kenny was a major force

in the East Village art scene.

They effectively changed
the language of the arts here

in New York in a matter of two
or three years in the sense that

they created a tremendous
variety of imagery

and characters that have
appealed to a vast audience.

Malia!

They're playing
"White Christmas".

Look up here.

Check it out.

That was good, right?

You know, when you're...

you're studying to be a plumber,
you're a plumber for life.

You study to be an airplane
pilot, you're that,

you don't
go back to school.

But artists keep... they have to
re-discover endlessly,

they can't just go forward,
doing what they're doing,

they have to extend it,
and I think Kenny

is a brilliant example of that.

He puts, like, the...
things happening in the world,

everything that's happening in
the world he's willing to, like,

funnel it in, put it in
the Mixmaster, it goes into

his paintings, and it's like
his life as an artist

and his art is inseparable.

All of my favorite artists
embody their art... the way

they look,
the way they live.

Spending some time with Kenny

is like immersion into his whole
aesthetic world.

I think all great art, to me,
has to have some element of...

humor to it.

Kenny was very,
very influential.

Anyone that had any knowledge
of... '80s culture

had to know of that group of
graffiti artists, that they...

they left an enormous
imprint in the culture.

I think artists,

a lot of artists come from
dysfunction.

There's always an exception.

I don't know Kenny's
background, though.

I don't know his history at all.

I mean, personal life, yeah.

You use everything.

Not wasting...
precious plastic.

When you can turn it into...

Bathroom sculpture!

I mean, who would've thought
that a straw and a cup top

would make such
fantastic sculpture?

In my opinion,
it's fantastic.

Many people think I'm crazy.

And I think that's okay.

I grew up in Los Angeles,

and a lot of people, you know,
would see where Los Angeles

is in a work,
you know, very Pop.

The place, especially
growing up in the '60s,

and I grew up in the Valley,

and everything is pretty plastic
and Pop and bright

and there's not too many old
things or traditional things.

You know, I didn't know anything
else, so I would say that

that has something
to with what I do.

I remember
once I was watching him paint

and he took a paintbrush with
paint and he drew a perfectly

straight line, like you put
a ruler in and would draw,

and I said to him, gee, I could
never do that, and he said,

you don't have to,
and it's true.

I sometimes wonder,
where did he get the talent?

Because I really don't know.

I never thought
he was gonna...

be a professional...
no, really and truly.

Growing up in the
typical suburban setting...

dad working, mom home...
my dad was a sweet man,

but I don't really feel like
he was there for me.

Oh, he had parents?

No, anytime we had a meal,
I would see the family,

but we rarely saw them.

He started to get his aesthetic
back then, 9th, 10th, 11th,

10th grade, and there was always
an irony in his work, I mean,

there was always something kind
of sinister or kooky-sinister

behind the veneer that was
trying to be normal.

I always felt
a little isolated.

I never really belonged to
any particular group or clique,

and just... I felt different
from everybody.

I was kind of an outsider.

I think, you know,
that has to do with

being an artist, as well.

Kenny Scharf was a young boy,
of course, but as a young boy,

he was watching
a great deal of television,

it must've been very interesting
to see him, to see this

young boy in that circumstance,
what impact that had on him,

and suddenly all of that became
material for him to use

in his fantasy art making.

Like, sometimes I'll
dream things, you know,

cartoon imagery or something,
like stuff I've seen on TV

that's now it's part of
my subconscious.

Kenny Scharf was very
self-conscious, even as

a student, of being an artist
that's working off of

the television culture.

That, to him, I suppose, is what
theology and cathedrals are

to a medieval artist,
and so the question's

what do you do with it?

You live in it and it seems
to me is what he's done is

to try to encourage some kind of
intellectual appreciation

of what's at stake here,
in this culture.

It was totally dull '70s
going on in LA and I start

really getting into Warhol
and the Factory and New York,

I was like, this is just
the most fun thing ever,

and I want to go there,
so that was basically my fuel

for moving to New York,
it was learning about Andy

and how he made art fun.

Reporter: Kenny Scharf
first came to the attention

of New York in the early 1980s
when he made paintings based on

the Jetsons, the Flintstones,
and other cartoon imagery

found in popular culture.

You've lots of
religious paintings.

Yes, I do, I found that
in the trash, that one, there.

- You found that in the trash.
- I found most of them,

the religious things,
in the trash.

I don't like to make any
distinction between my art

and my life or my surroundings.

I try to just be myself, and if
this was this kind of thing

which... I don't know, I don't
know what you would call it...

decoration or just
my apartment, I don't know.

I applied to all arts schools,

and the only one that would take
me was SVA, which took anyone.

I happened to be wandering
around in the hall

and I heard the Devo music.

♪ ...whip it good ♪

♪ I said whip it ♪

And so I kind of
followed it and then I came upon

Keith, painting to the beat of
the music, in this room,

and he was almost finished
except for the corner where

he was standing, so he had
painted himself into a corner

and I just stood there
and I remember thinking

when I saw him, this is the
person I've been looking for.

This is what I imagined when I
went to art school in New York.

What's the story
with Andy Warhol?

What do you think of...
of what he's doing today?

I mean,
since I came to New York,

or even when I learned
about art history,

it was like that was like
the figure for me.

He was like my hero,
and then I remember I met him,

the first time I met him was at
the Peppermint Lounge

when they opened the Peppermint
Lounge in Times Square,

and he just thought I was this
cute boy and he was taking...

he was taking feathers out of
this girl's hat and putting them

in my hair and I remember I said
to him, I said, you know,

we're in
the same show together,

and he's like, "Oh, really,
what's that?"

I go, "New York/New Wave,"
he goes, "Oh, yeah?"

And I said, and I told him my
name and I said, and you'll,

you'll hear me... you're gonna
remember that name,

you'll hear it again.

I knew Kenny
was going to be famous

from the minute I met him.

- Really? Why?
- I don't know, I...

You know, I just...

I just knew he would be.

There was a short period
where you and Kenny

were hanging out together,
very brief period...

- No, no, no, not that brief.
- Not that brief?

- But you had a falling out.
- No, we never had

a falling out,
I don't know, you know,

I don't know what happened.

I mean...

Well, he said he went tagging
with you once around the city.

- Did he?
- He had never tagged before,

but he borrowed
the spray can from you.

- No.
- And he did a TV set

and he wrote, "Flintstones"
inside it...

- this was long before anything...
- I don't remember this,

but I was on heavy drugs,
I don't remember.

I don't remember.

Sounds good, though.

Three artists... Scharf,
Basquiat, and Haring...

it's kind of one of those quirks
of timing, I think,

that they all kind of came
together at the same moment,

and it was kind of fascinating
that they all three came from

different parts of the country,
and they all seemed to have just

found each other, some kind of
magnets drew them together.

They brought a vitality
and an energy to art

that just hadn't been there.

The importance of those three
artists, they just seemed

to bring the '80s alive,
really.

Their engagement
with the streets, specifically,

making that... anyone can see
that, right, you didn't

have to go into a white cube,
you didn't have to go into

a museum... anyone could
experience that, and even

just their deciding that this is
art, this is art as much as,

you know, a framed picture on
the wall of the Whitney Museum.

All of that... the streets,
these spaces,

the use of their imagery...
felt about this idea

of making art less precious
and making it more accessible.

Can I talk about sex and drugs
and rock and roll? No.

When I came to New York
in the '70s, New York was a...

great place because
it was bankrupt, it was

a bankrupt city, so you could
move in, you didn't need

very little money to survive
and so all the artists came,

of course, I mean, everybody
came to the East Village and,

you know,
you'd invent yourself.

Well, I created
the fantasy person that I wanted

to be, and I called myself
Jet Scharf.

Kenny used to live
in the back of this building

gave to the back of
Klaus Nomi's building.

I'm Klaus Nomi,
I'm from the planet Nomi.

So you'd hear him
rehearsing.

There's a lot of...
roof parties at the time.

Summertime was
roof party time.

There was a lot of
hanky-panky on the roof.

I just have this image
of New York

in the summer on the roof,
I mean, God.

I arrived in '77
and I came straight

from England and I was 17.

It was... it was just

a completely different city
than it is now.

Downtown was...
was very empty.

That's the one thing I remember
most about New York

at that time, is you could
walk downtown at night

and it was absolutely empty,

and it was really, really
beautiful and really romantic,

you know, really
mysterious and wonderful.

It was, probably,
the most creative place

in the world at that point.

What those guys
were doing and what we were

all trying to do as artists
is be individual and have

our own lifestyles
and our own flavors.

It was a fresh, new idea
to this broad canvas

which was New York City.

We were all trying to get into
the doors of the art world,

but also trying
to hold the doors open

for some other people
to come in.

I think Kenny was,
he was really,

really making video art then.

I remember meeting him one night
with Bruno going over there

and he was editing
or something.

Me and Kenny went to Scotland
to visit Samantha McEwen,

but then Kenny decided
to make a vampire movie,

me being the vampire.

And Samantha's father said,
"You can film anywhere you want

"except in the cemetery
because the whole family's

in the cemetery," of course,
the one place that Kenny

wanted to film
was in the cemetery.

...bind her!
Bind her!

Every day there'd be, like,
200 things he'd have to go

and do, but they weren't like
normal people's things

he had to do, it wasn't like
go to the office and post

the letter, it was like you
know, take the vacuum cleaner

for a walk, you know, like...

really unexpected.

Most appliances
and telephones, et cetera,

are really pretty boring
and I transform them

into something different.

It just changes an average
person's life... you're using

the telephone,
everyone does it all the time,

you don't think about it.

Every time you use a phone,
if you can like, put your finger

on the jewels and, you know, you
pick it up and there's, like,

pretty things to look at,
it helps, you know,

it improves the quality of life.

He paints on everything and
anything and he always did,

you know, always, and
customizing... back then

it was customizing TVs
and toaster ovens

and telephones and...

Yeah, there's no separation
between Kenny and his art.

What else do you have?

The broom even has a ribbon
on it... look at this...

even the broom.

Every single thing
that Kenny did was not what

you expected... you never
would've imagined anybody would

do that, and I think Keith
also was, you know,

when he started doing
the subway drawings and stuff,

I mean, it was completely out of
nowhere, I think that was

the most amazing thing about
them, was that they were both

completely sort of unexpected.

Also, the other thing was very,
very, very real about them

was that it was their
generation,

it was their work,
their life, their idea.

It had absolutely nothing
to do with what was going on

in the galleries at that time.

- You love this song?
- It's beauty, Popeye.

- I wrote it.
- You did?

- Yeah, I wrote this song.
- You wrote this song?

This song... among others,
but yes.

- Ooh...
- Yeah, that looks cool, yeah?

Okay, so living with Keith,
being with Keith,

I was just wondering,
because I know that there was

a really beautiful relationship

but then an undercurrent
sometimes of...

Well, it was hard for me, when
Keith and I were roommates,

that's when he started doing
the subway drawings and it just

kind of exploded for him, like,
really exploded and I remember

the first couple of times
people came over,

it was like my work
was invisible,

I remember the feeling of, like,
what am I gonna... you know,

so yeah, it was hard
on the ego, for sure.

It didn't even really sink in
that, yeah, here I am, like,

four years later doing drawings
at the Whitney and you have all

these new things heaped on top
of you that you're supposed to

deal with and be responsible for
and supposed to become

this sort of role model
for all these other people.

It's sort of a big
responsibility, to be the one

person that is singled out
because every... all these

other people, I mean, hundreds
of other people that supposedly

would like to be in your shoes
but they are not given a chance

because at any one time there's
only a handful of people

that get to do it.

He and Keith were absolutely
like brothers, you know,

and, and, you know, but fiercely
competitive, I mean,

very seriously competitive,
and I think Kenny's process

wasn't there yet,
I mean, I don't know what

Kenny's feelings are about
that era, but I do know,

I do remember it being...
witnessing this incredible

struggle in himself to sort of
become the next thing

that he needed to become.

I remember going to Club
57, like we just went there

and hung out and listened
to the jukebox and drank...

This crowd was
the first crowd to really

completely embrace popular
culture, right?

- Mm-hmm, I guess so...
- First downtown, hip scene

to really get into it.

You guys weren't
aware of it at the time?

- Hmm?
- You weren't conscious of that?

Sort of, yeah, because we were
doing it because it was fun.

It was what we grew up on too.

It was like summer camp,
it was fun dressing up...

Yeah, every night
was a new channel.

It was very mysterious,

it wasn't exactly clear
what Club 57 was.

It was completely
under the radar.

I became Kenny's girlfriend
for about two years.

He eventually
took me down there because...

Finding it was very difficult,
it was in a church,

so you could actually
look for it and not realize

that that's where you were
supposed to be going

for a long time.

It was a petri dish
for... experimenting

with an audience
that was supportive,

and you didn't have to worry
about doing something terrible

and then you'd get bad reviews
or ruin your career

because there was no career,
there was no money.

I'm just so excited... ever
since I came to New York, well,

I... I just never thought
I'd find myself here

while back on the farm I used to
always dream about being

some kind of animal, but I never
thought I'd be a bunny!

We'll have wonderful
entertainment

for all you friends out there.

Well, the great thing about
Club 57 was that it really

was this incubator of talent and
that there were no boundaries

and the whole punk aesthetic
of "do it yourself

and you can do anything"
prevailed.

So people ended up taking
to the stage like a duck

takes to water and creating
performance art

kind of in the style of the
Dada-ists that everyone studied

in art school but also
with a nod towards Andy Warhol

and the Happenings of the '60s
and then just incorporating

other elements
that made it our own.

Kenny was always
in the middle of that.

♪ We've got an
uncontrollable urge... ♪

♪ I've got
an uncontrollable urge... ♪

That was our whole life,
it was party all night,

go out all night to the clubs,
you know, and then we'd get up

somehow in the morning and go to
school and then, you know,

do the whole thing
all over again.

We went out every single night.

We just created
a family where we felt

we were understood and accepted
for who we are.

Kenny was very, very much part
of the New York club scene,

and that club scene
evolved into an art scene.

That was a very important move
that happened,

that the club scene
become an art scene.

To boil Kenny down,
the word would be compulsion.

You could not take Kenny
away from the paint.

You go to the studio
and you can see

he's fucking compulsive,
you know?

And you can see that in Kenny...
some people call it genius,

and a lot of people like to pass
that compulsion off as genius,

and I guess you could say,
in Kenny's case probably,

that he is a genius.

Sometimes I start with
an image and then work

around that, and sometimes, like
on these paintings over here,

I'm just cleaning my brushes and
I let the drips and I let them

form a background or maybe I let
them... I make a weird shape

and then it looks like
something else

and then I make it
something else.

There's a few different ways
I start a painting.

Everything just naturally
evolved by itself and...

It's just
a mixture of everything.

I really thought
that all of Kenny's stuff

was not of this earth, like his
stuff came from another planet.

Kenny had his own unique,
unique world to present to us.

I know our...

I know our viewers
are really anxious,

they're all writing in, they
want to hear about Jetsonism.

What is Jetsonism?

Well, um, Jetsonism
is a part of the whole religion

of Hanna Barbarism,
and the Jetsonism section

is the Nirvana part,
the really fun Heaven part

where you get to go.

Uh-huh, and that entails,
I understand...

I read your thing
and it's something about...

The nuclear holocaust
about to consume us all.

Well, it's on our minds,
definitely,

definitely on the minds
of everyone.

We live in a world in which
the great powers have poised

and aimed at each other horrible
missiles of destruction,

nuclear weapons that can,
in a matter of minutes,

arrive at each other's country
and destroy...

virtually the civilized world
we live in.

There is no substitute
for victory, Mr. President...

A lot of the artwork,
particularly Kenny's,

was obsessed with this concept
of nuclear annihilation.

The feeling of me
and my friends and the New York

club scene was that we're
just about to explode

and so it was actually,

let's party now
and just have as much

fun as we can because it's
all gonna be over tomorrow.

I don't know what to do.

I have nothing to believe in.

Just stop!
Are you confused?

With Club 57,
with some of those energies

going on downtown,
there was a lot of infantilism.

There was a lot of regressive,
really childish behavior

that really, you know,
you could push it so far but...

in ways where absurdity
could be embraced

beyond just experimenting.

I think that there was a reason
for that, it was sort of,

you know, we were promised
a great world and then

all of a sudden it was like
Ronald Reagan and there was

all this... it wasn't
the Jetsons.

A lot of people
don't take jokey art seriously.

It's not what
he's depicting so much as

the style of the depiction...

I suppose you could say is a
little adolescent or nostalgic

for adolescence or a different
time when things were

a little less troubled
or complicated,

you know they're fantasies,

it was fun,
it wasn't meant to be

taken seriously but it was done
very serious, I mean,

they were serious
about what they were doing,

it was communicating to
a lot of people.

You can't beat abstract
expressionism for being

a beautiful decoration in a bank
lobby or maybe the waiting room

in a hospital, you can't beat
that because it doesn't say

anything... it's calm and it's
tranquil and it... it doesn't

violate the environment
like one of Kenny's paintings

or one of mine would challenge
the environment,

so it'd be very challenging
to an environment.

Oh, look, another heart.

Ooh...

Ooh, there.

That's good, right?

Oh, maybe that. That looks good
right there, huh?

Yeah, oh, yeah.

There we go.

I knew that hole
was meant for something.

So what do you consider
serious art?

This is serious art...
to me, it's all serious.

I wouldn't be doing it all the
time if it wasn't serious,

and some people don't like that,

because I've always had that
thing, I'm like, people thought

I was obnoxious because
I probably was.

But, you know, sometimes you
just have to be yourself, right?

And if you're screaming out
all the time... and that's who

you are and you do things
loudly,

then what are you gonna do?

This particular
generation of artists,

these were individuals
who could dance...

who could dance, whereas
generations of artists before,

they couldn't dance
for jack shit!

Big difference.

And the first thing
that happens,

Jean-Michel became very rich
and successful and all that,

Kenny and him always had
this weird thing going on.

It was sort of love-hate, but
he would sometimes have a bit

of an attitude or, like, Kenny
just had a very unique kind of

fun-loving, effervescent,
happy-go-lucky personality,

and perhaps that rubbed Jean
the wrong way.

And then Keith made it very,
very big and all of a sudden

he became rich,
which was great for him,

we were so happy
for him, you know,

but Kenny was moving heaven
and earth... he was obsessed,

he had to make it
or otherwise, you know,

he'd be the one who didn't.

They just had this
incredible energy,

they were just absolutely
hellbent on making

the next piece or making the
next picture, and that drive,

in a way was really, really
about their own life,

it wasn't anymore
about the group or the...

it stopped being so playful.

I mean, everyone became, like,
career... everyone that was

doing things then just did
started doing it

more professional and started...

You got tired of not having
money after a while, too,

people just...

Yeah, when you see other
people that are in

your same group that are going
places, you say, you know,

I want to go there too,
so everyone got real serious.

Graffiti was so monumentally
significant when you were

in New York when it was really
happening, when it was happening

on the trains and when some of
those artists who make

the effort to get their work out
on canvas, where they weren't

just writing their names
anymore, they were really

trying to be artists... it was
so, it was such an insanely

powerful moment
that any other artist

was going to be affected by it.

So Kenny, Keith and few other
artists became inspired

and started doing work
on the street.

Now, it wasn't graffiti,
it was like something which now

we that have Banksy and
Shepard Fairey and stuff

like that, we can
call it street art.

It's all part of the
philosophy

that we all believe in, this
whole group of us,

that art was not only for the
gallery wall, the museum wall...

art should be for everybody.

With this generation coming
along, they're already

finding themselves
in a landscape in New York

whereby the streets were
littered, and yet within that,

they had the energy, the need,
the desire, the original drive

and also their motion,
their ability of flexibility

of working in the streets.

And then Kenny, I'm working
with him, the response

was extraordinary,
and more importantly,

even the Whitney Museum
immediately responded

so positively that they
purchased one of

the largest paintings
that Kenny Scharf did.

The main way to communicate
was to get out on the street,

and the message got out there
and of course the attention came

and then, then it started
to unravel a little bit.

When the success, the money,
the fame, when the uptown world

started paying attention
to the downtown world,

some of that wonderful,
naive idealism was lost.

Times change a lot,
and to deal with success is not

an easy thing, you know,
people trade you

so you become a commodity.

The '80s became a very,
you know, dark.

The drugs were getting
very heavy,

everybody thinks of
the '80s as this happy,

crazy fun...
it was none of that.

Bruno was my good
friend, still is.

He was going down to Brazil and
so I said, "Oh, you know what?

That would be perfect,
I'm going to go down to Brazil,"

and then we took a plane
from Rio to Salvador,

we were going there
for Carnival,

and we got on the plane and I
saw her sitting in the front,

and I looked at her and she
looked at me and I smiled

and she smiled back.

And that was it,
I met her on the plane.

Bruno was really jealous
because we were smitten.

The next thing I knew, I was off
on a honeymoon with her.

I don't know, I abandoned Bruno
and the two of us went

to this... incredible place
in the middle of nowhere

called Canoa Quebrada,
and then, like, oh, literally

two weeks later, she's like,
asking me to have her baby

and I'm agreeing to it.

In retrospect, it's insane,
and it is, but we have Zena.

So, no regrets.

With this young lady,
in a hut on the water,

with the Amazon jungle
creeping behind him,

no neighbors,
no roads there,

no electricity
and no telephone.

He bought that land.

It's important to know
that background

because there's not
too many artists did that.

And he went back there and he
made many paintings there,

so there's a background to this
adventure, there's a reality

to these colors and all of
these things going on here,

and that is what is
the magic with Kenny.

I'm in love with nature

and I'm embracing the...

the beauty of nature,
and the beauty of painting,

actual paint, colors,
that whole thing.

I love nature, that is
my religion, really, I mean,

I think nature is God,
I guess.

I seem to have a lack of
warm colors, right?

- All greens and...
- Yeah, it is funny...

I travel everywhere...
from all over the world...

and I found the best trash,

that's the only reason
I go there, yeah,

because it's the best trash.

- Where?
- Bahia.

- You have a house there?
- Yeah, I got it because

the trash on the beach
is like no other.

I mean, really.

So, you went to Brazil
and got... what did you...

- just gather?
- I clean the beach.

I clean the beach, first in
front of our house, and then

I start going north and south
along the beach, and then

I go to, like,
the riverbeds

where the rivers
run into the water,

because that's where
all the stuff comes out.

And I... I take a lot of
the garbage.

I've been doing it
probably for about...

30 years? Around.

It's like you're having
a fight...

I am, actually,
yeah, how's that look?

Does that look gorgeous?

There, that is gorgeous.

Wow!

Yeah.

One, two, three.

♪ Bahia Buddha Hotel ♪

♪ Where the family
comes to play ♪

♪ Where sunshine
comes your way ♪

♪ Bahia Buddha Hotel
in Mission Bay ♪

- Yeah.
- Yeah.

I think when
Keith was around Kenny,

Keith was sillier than
he was around other people,

as we all were, around Kenny.

I guess Kenny just brought it
out in you.

They were both getting more
serious because the whole

art world and their careers were
more serious than they had been

when they started out, playing
the whole art world game,

but Kenny helped keep
the silly side going.

We all were at the tail end of
the baby boomer generation,

so we had grown up
with Vietnam

but we were too young
to have been drafted into it,

so almost breathing a sigh of
relief, wow, you know,

at least we didn't have a war,

and then the threat of nuclear
annihilation was always

hanging over you, particularly
after Reagan got elected,

but we never dreamed that
there would be this microbe

that would be our Vietnam,
our Hydrogen bomb

and it really
destroyed the community.

Scientists at the
National Centers for Disease

Control in Atlanta today
released the results of a study

which shows that the lifestyle
of some male homosexuals

has triggered an epidemic...

It is about health,
about attitudes,

about looking at life
in these United States.

For the first time
the number of AIDS cases

passed the 100,000 mark.

There's a new AIDS
death every half hour.

The federal government
has been accused of

discrimination by a lack of
funding for research.

The fact that it has taken the
president five years to begin

to even address this problem
publicly demonstrates that

this administration
hasn't given it

the level of commitment
that it deserves.

It was very, very scary
because nobody knew how

it was transmitted, you know,
on one hand you didn't want

to reject your friends
who were ill,

but then you were thinking,
well, am I going to get it

if I touch them?

AIDS killed off a good third
of the creative energy

of that time
and forced us all to grow up.

- ...say hi.
- Hi.

Yeah.

God, it was like,
a couple of years ago.

- Thirty years ago.
- Thirty years ago.

1990, that's almost 30 years
ago, it's like yesterday,

whenever I start to
talk about it, you know?

Yeah, it's hard.

So he was lying there.

He couldn't talk,
he couldn't open his eyes,

he was very agitated.

His whole body was kind of...
he was fighting it, you know?

He was fighting... dying,
and I sat... and I was alone,

there was no one else around,
and I sat there with him

and I held his hand
and I said,

you should... time for you to
relax, you can just let it go,

I said you...
everything you've done...

...everything you've done
will go on and be more and more

influential and powerful and you
have done an amazing thing and

you can really let it go
and relax.

And he did... I could feel
his whole body just relax,

and I knew he heard me, I told
him I loved him...

...you know, I left,
and then he died.

You know it was the end, and
Kenny had babies, you know,

we all have children so, it was
a very strange way of living.

Sometimes it would be
just so harsh

and so cruel
and so depressing,

and then you come home
and then there are these,

these children, and they are
innocent and full of life

and full of joy and really
they help me, in a major way,

of getting through
that horrible time.

We decided to move to Miami
because Kenny was so sad.

He cried, almost every day he
cried because he was so sad.

We just kind of, like,
really made it, because Kenny

always managed to support
his family from his work

and at that point it wasn't
really happening for him.

My biggest source
of stress was, I can't pay

the bills,
what am I gonna do?

We had everything traded...
I had my rent traded, my studio,

I had the dentist traded
for art, I had that credit card

I had, which was
pretty much our groceries.

You know, growing up with him
working as an artist,

there were moments that it was
really scary and we wouldn't

really know if or where we would
be able to take care of things

and pay for things next time.

He clearly sheltered us from
that, we never really knew

exactly what was happening
when it was happening,

but I remember feeling that,

okay, things
are hard right now.

I had this idea that
once money came, that money

was always going to come, like
if people were going to get

behind your paintings
right away, like as soon as

that happens they will
always be behind you,

you'll never get abandoned,

and I really believed that,
so I just spent money,

I didn't save it, thinking that
it was always there to stay

and then it stopped coming.

I think about sometimes what
would've happened

if we had stayed in New York
and kind of pushed through.

I almost kind of feel like it
would've been more beneficial

for him to actually face some of
the things that were coming up

inside of him instead of
running away.

I have a balancing act
between being a responsible

adult and the Peter Pan syndrome

because I just feel like life
is so much about the moment,

so I want every moment fun
and beautiful and the...

That's not really
the way life works.

No, it's not,
it's not reality.

That's the fear of
growing up,

because reality is reality,
so either you don't have to

give up the play in order
for it to be serious,

you don't have to give up
the play to grow up.

Kenny was so disorganized.

He could never find his
checkbook, his passport,

you know, and it was getting
to be a problem, and I said,

look, Kenny, I'll help you out,
let me help you get organized

and he had gotten a studio,
so he needed help, so...

During that time Kenny's...
if you look at his work during

that time, there's a lot of
dark paintings.

I'm into Pop Art
but the reason I feel

it's different now than the Pop
Art of the '60s is Pop Art

from the '60s was more of
a stance, like, from far away.

What I'm doing is more taking
these things out of my own

subconscious that I grew up
on and so it's kind of...

surrealism, in a way... not
surrealism but just natural,

organic, from my own
imagination.

At a certain point
those of us who are overly

identified with the East
Village... look at all the stuff

that helped us, that was that
'80s moment when we were all

pushed probably more than
we should have been, you know,

we probably weren't
all that great.

We got a lot of hype and a lot
of love and it was very helpful

for us to have that
so young in life,

but conversely, when that moment
was over, it was passé.

And so what was once a badge
of honor and recognition

became a stigmata.

So then he had to deal with
a really, really rough period

where I don't think that guy
could've gotten run over by

an ice cream truck on a nice day
in Soho kind of thing...

he really, his market dried up,
whatever, the interest dried up,

he was sort of like
yesterday's news.

I remember someone once
said, someone came down from

New York, and they were like,
"Oh, Kenny Scharf,

I thought you were dead."

And I was like, almost like,
"Not only did I thought

you were dead, but you're
supposed to be dead."

I did internalize all these
feelings of failure,

of being a has-been.

I didn't know, really, what to
do, I don't really know

anything else, you know, I'm not
like a great businessman,

so the only way I knew how to
make money was making art.

Now, Kenny's in the same boat
with me to a certain extent,

and here's the boat
we're in.

After the second World War,

New York becomes the center
of the world art capital.

The mode that it used to do it
with was abstract expressionism,

see, it's a new, fresh world.

And Jackson Pollock
was a premiere star

of that whole plethora
of other characters

who pulled in on that,
just like they did

the graffiti movement.

So this reigned for a long,
long time, for 30 years or so,

this philosophy, and you would
think, well, Pop Art

would be the breakthrough, but
Pop Art immediately took on

the aspect of being
appropriation art,

so you weren't free there
either.

But with graffiti that Kenny
was in, you could slip back

into a form of realism,
a cartoon form of realism,

so me and Kenny have this
brotherhood of being

cartoon oriented, and it's still
to this day disregarded,

still to this fucking day
disregarded

as sophisticated art.

Cartoony sometimes
makes things

more accessible to more people.

You can get away
with things in animation

that you couldn't with
real people.

You can say and do and depict
situations and people

and be very straightforward
in your criticism,

in your social critique, but
somehow confined to a canvas,

it loses a dimension somehow...
I don't know, that doesn't

make any sense but
that's how it feels.

It doesn't leave the viewer
a lot of room

to exercise his or her
own imagination.

I think all the things which
make Kenny's work important

and attractive, they're also
reasons for skeptics

to say, well,
this is not important,

you know, it's not profound.

I think many artists
whose work is... appealing,

superficially appealing,
it's easy to take that appeal

and turn it around and use it
as a justification

to dismiss the work.

I think I have
a syndrome, it's the syndrome

where you see faces
in everything,

you know, when I look at houses,
the windows and then...

I just see faces everywhere,
when I look at... flowers,

whatever, I'm always seeing
faces... eyeballs, nose,

and mouth... I'm always
making faces.

I think maybe, I think that
everything is like a person,

in a way, so I think everything
has a personality, and that's

why I see faces, like it kind of
conveys the personality

and not only every
living thing, but even that

inanimate object, to me,
has personality.

Well, yeah, I came up with
the idea I was going to do

an animation, and pretty much
moved to LA to do it.

I thought, well, this is...
I'm... it's not like I wanted

to stop being in the art world,
I just thought

I need to branch out,
so that was a big dream of mine

and I realized that I want
to pursue it, and I did.

We moved to LA and he came
here with that dream

that he was going to be able
to make it happen.

He actually worked with
Cartoon Network.

The cartoon did happen,
he... I think he played a couple

of times on Cartoon Network,
but it wasn't really, you know,

it didn't... it didn't
really make it.

You know, you can hang
on by your fingernails,

that is the art-creative
process,

all you need are
the fingernails, right?

You're still hanging on.
Most people... what is it,

the odds of even having
a successful career?

It's infinitesimal.

You know, there are a lot of
people that do it for a minute

and a half but Kenny's been
doing it for 40 years.

Artists have a hard time,
whether it's at the beginning

of their career,
the middle of their career

or the end of their career.
No one escapes,

but if you make your art
from love you're fine.

I'm not gonna lie... I was
on the 15 bus going across

and I seen him just working
right there and I'm like, yo,

that's, that's too cool,
like, I need that,

I need that, anything.

Okay, before I do it,
do you want a monster or happy?

Happy. It's all about
happy and love.

- Happy.
- And peace, man.

- Okay. Check it out.
- That is so dope!

- You got it.
- I got a smiley face!

Hey, Joe, bring it in,
bring it in, baby.

Something very
important that's going on

is this increasing merger of
progressive popular culture

and fine art culture.

So, Kenny was in the forefront
of that, and we see that this

is really defining progressive
culture today more and more.

There's a group
that resists that

and Kenny, as much as
any other artist,

is fusing the two together.

Art's always done
such a good job at speaking

to such a small number
of people.

Kenny is a real populist,
he's happy with it being on

the street, but for people
to go, like,

"Wow, that's kind of cool.
What's that advertising?"

It's like, oh, nothing,
it's advertising free thinking.

I think,
what a subversive message

to put out in our culture.

Well, I think that
street art does not have to be

filtered through
an academic power system

or a critical art power scene.

It is right where it is
and it's direct to the people.

Yeah, I mean, it's great when
you make work on the street,

there's no red tape, there's no
committee, there's no, like...

just you have it, you think
about it, you leave your house,

it comes to fruition,
you see it the next day.

I like cartoons because I think
of them sort of like actors

that never get old
and you can kind of create these

compositions with them and, you
know, in different countries,

you can not speak
the same language

but you could've grown up
on the same thing.

He's guilty of engaging
in the F-word, "Fun,"

and so you see that
instantly in his work.

He's not out of control...
sometimes he has this

out of control appearance
to his work, but it's always

in control at the same time,
and so there's

a definite discipline
that you see in his work

with each one of his pictures.

He's always kind of done
the things he wanted to do

and not really play along,
you know, a lot of times there's

a comfort zone in the art world
that a lot of people

don't want to move past,
and another thing's exclusivity.

You know, he'll do a museum show
but then he'll go and paint

all these cars for people that
he meets randomly, that show up,

and so that might work against
the sort of preciousness

of a lot of people that
sort of pigeonhole art into.

But at the same time he's
reaching a whole different

group of people and I think
for him that's what's fun,

that's what's interesting and
that's what he goes towards.

I get included
a lot in these street art

type of places, exhibitions,
and things where it's me

and a lot of, I guess,
more traditional type of

graffiti, graffiti art.

In a way I weirdly feel like
I'm the kind of clowny,

gay element, the only
clowny gay element that exists.

I actually never really
felt like I belonged

in any of the defined groups,
which I still don't...

belong in any particular group.

I'm not that and I'm not that
and I'm not that, I'm kind of

like all of it and there really
isn't a group for all of it.

I think the kids call it now,
I think they call it "fluid,"

is that what the kids call...

Sexuality,
your sexuality is fluid.

I'd say it was challenging
for me when I was younger,

when I was still kind of
questioning myself

and I was concerned with what
other people might think

about me, and now
that I'm older,

I don't really care about that.

It's not easy, living in
this world, it's not.

Take a shell-fie?

A shell-fie!

Or a trashy?

Well, that's not really
as funny as shell-fie.

It's all personal consumption,

and then it gets used
in other stuff.

I'm obsessed with garbage,

I'm obsessed
with plastic, mostly,

plastic garbage, the impact
it has on our world.

There's hardly anyplace on the
globe that you can go to

where you won't see
some kind of garbage, trash.

One of the things I like
to do is take this element

that I find dangerous and
turning it into something

that I find attractive,
that is interesting to me.

I love the idea of taking
the discarded, the unwanted,

and turning them
into something else.

Yeah, he's got a particular
attraction to cast-off items

and he likes these
old devices.

Give him a princess telephone

and it's going to become
something else.

One point that I think does
need to be highlighted

about Kenny Scharf is the
importance of performers,

and in a way he's really a bit
of a showman, he's an artist

but he's also kind of a Master
of Ceremonies, and I think

that's a part of his
generosity as an artist

that most people
don't see or understand.

I think the timing
is starting to be right for all

the stuff that I've been kind of
wanting for a long time.

It seems like the rest
of the world

is finally
gonna catch up to me.

It's not about being a star,
being a... famous person,

it's just about being
an artist and creative.

So are you excited
to see your painting?

Yeah.

When was the last time
you saw it?

When they had it
in the old Whitney.

I'll see you later.

So what was your idea
behind it?

Was it... was there something

that conceptually
you were feeling?

Yeah, I think it's like...

It's a combination of...

tranquility and chaos,
all in one.

When the worlds collide,
it's like everything

is existing together
at the same time.

And that you can be calm

and have tranquility
inside chaos.

The most important
thing for Kenny is his family,

there's nothing goes after,
you know, which saves him,

it makes him a mensch, it makes
him a good person, you know?

And he loves his family
more than anything,

and I understand that.

Malia!

Scharf's work
is really underlying

the fragile state
of the world's environment.

He's one of the few artists
that puts the kitchen sink

into his work, totally
American in many ways,

and it's just like
the noise of life

lives in his paintings.

There has to always
be someone who does too much,

he's too much, and that's
what makes him a genius.

He takes that practice and takes
it to such an extreme

that you go, "Oh, my God,
who does this?"

It's like a... a visionary,
only a visionary.

He could make it
like this very fun, comic-y,

visual pastiche, but within
there are... he's working out

not just his demons, but a
larger collective demonology

of what's going on
in our culture.

So there's that freedom
and spontaneity and aliveness

that's actually in our nature.

A healthy part of aging is to
become more playful again

and to let go, as you let go
of the burdens you become

more childlike again,
in a certain sense.

Even the word "play," I mean,
that's what artists do,

they just play,
and musicians,

they play music, you know,

so that sense of childlike
creativity is precisely I think

why we turn to artists,
I think they preserve

or they express that part of us
that most of us had lost.

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