Kenny Scharf

Provenance:
Paul Kasmin Gallery
Private Collection, Los Angeles

Lot essay:

The Jetsons have featured prominently in the work of Kenny Scharf, who grew up in the 1960s during the Space Age, fully immersed in television, science fiction, pop imagery and advertising. Coining the term “Pop Surrealism,” Scharf refers to his subconscious as being so saturated with media images that they manifest themselves in his art without his having to think much about content. JUDY JUDY JUDY …AKA JUDY INFINITUM, 2013 provides an excellent example of this multiplicity of images, the iconic figure of Judy Jetson swirling into infinity, receding into a surrealist landscape that knows no bounds. 

A close friend of Keith Haring’s in New York, Scharf reached his mature style in the 1970s and 80s, at a time when New York artists aimed to break free from the confinement of the gallery space and art market, taking their work to the street in the form of graffiti and public art. Often describing his work as intentionally fun and joyful, Scharf works to create what he calls “anti-elitist art,” reaching the viewer through familiar images and ideas. Likening his work to our consumption of media, he said in a 1983 interview with gallerist Tony Shafrazi: “each painting is like changing channels.”