Kenny Scharf: Southern California’ Street Art Icon

Over the last four decades Graffiti has emerged from urban vandalism to “Street Art” and is now viewed as the biggest art movement of the 21st century. Starting in the 1970s in New York, it has grown into an art form that has produced artists such as Shepard Fairey, Barry McGee and Banksy, and as a result has been dubbed as the “art of the people.”

Graffiti has had a boost in popularity

Following the turn of the new century, street art gained a massive boost as social media started to spread the images around the world. Kenny Scharf has seen it grow and blossom since he moved it forward from letters on the wall 40 years ago. Now seen as art the minute it is discovered or shared, it has changed the view of conceptualists in the art world. With the increased activity of street artists in the last 15 years, Scharf has once again found himself painting outside after a request from the Pasadena Museum of California Art for their exhibit “Kenny Scharf: California Grown”. Scharf decided he would paint the underground parking garage, knowing it would long outlast the museum’s exhibit. What followed was an explosion of new invitations from different parts of the US, which included painting the infamous Bowery Wall in New York.

Graffiti adorned the wall of a Hollywood library

2011 saw Scharf painting a massive mural on the outer wall of the West Hollywood Library, which led to a plethora of exhibitions, documentaries and publications on his work. The publicity lent new fuel to the fire of appreciation for street artists around the world. Along with the painting of the parking garage, the murals became an extension of the exhibition, “Art in the Streets,” which was the first big museum showing of street art.

Popularity grows with The Simpsons shows

This followed with a request from “The Simpsons” creator, Matt Groening, to be included on the hit show. Scharf was set to play a graffiti artist, along with renowned street artists, Robbie Conal and Ron English. Scharf knew nothing about the cultural importance of the show until a published list of Groening’s “100 favourite things” had his art at number 85. Scharf’s popularity was gaining ground again, on a much bigger scale than before. Moreover, in pop culture, being invited to be caricatured on The Simpsons is at par with being knighted.

A painted car welcomed visitors in a museum lobby

Scharf’s part in the exhibit “Art in the Streets” at the Museum of Contemporary Art, in Los Angeles, which received positive reviews, was impressive and hard to miss. With one of his painted cars at the entrance, and a mural along the walkway to the Cosmic Cavern exhibit, Scharf was acknowledged as a “foundational figure.” The L.A. Times review said the show was “not just about showcasing street art but about recovering in some way what has already been lost.”

Huge warehouses were transformed into a gallery

In the wave of popularity and recognition he was now getting, Scharf was invited to paint at the Wynwood Walls, a new development in Miami. Created by Tony Goldman as a community revitalization project, it used the huge warehouse buildings as an outdoor art gallery. And the combination of the events of 2011 firmly planted Scharf in the annals of street art history.

These days, it is hard to travel around any US city without seeing Kenny Scharf’s work on a wall or random fence. The work of the artist who paved the way for street art can be found in more places now than ever before.