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Kenny Scharf

Art

Former Deitch Directors Ready The Hole

By Paul Laster on

There is life after Deitch. Now that the dynamic art dealer has assumed his new position as director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, his former staff members are carving out places of their own in the New York art world.

Last week the Wall Street Journal reported on the opening of the Hole — a collaborative art space run by former Deitch Projects directors Kathy Grayson and Meghan Coleman in SoHo — and on Friday the gallery sent out news of its first show, Not Quite Open for Business, which features unfinished art, unfinished poems, and unfinished symphonies by 20 renegade artists in an installation designed by Taylor McKimens. Seeking an inside look at the project and the related personalities, we surfed Grayson’s blog, Art From Behind, and grabbed some images that provide a playful view of the situation in flux. … Read More

Art

Flavorpill at Art Basel Miami Beach: Days 4, 5, and 6

By Paul Laster on

It was still hot and humid on Friday so we began the day with the Nada Art Fair at the Deauville, a sprawling, shabby-chic hotel that hosted the fair in the lobby and two ballrooms. The Richelieu room featured galleries with solo exhibitions, which were far better than what was on view in the group show hangings in the Napoleon room. Highlights included Brendan Fowler’s canceled concert posters in fractured frames at Rental; Patrick Jackson’s stacked sculptures of kitsch objects at Francois Ghebally Gallery; and Scott Hug’s pie chart pieces at John Connelly Presents. We ran into Kavi Gupta in the lobby and he invited us to an impromptu celebration at the hotel’s Tiki Bar so we stopped looking at art long enough to enjoy a Mojito by the… Read More

Art

Flavorpill at Art Basel Miami Beach: Day 1

By Paul Laster on

Art Basel Miami Beach week started this year with yesterday’s Design Miami opening. Swiss Messe, ABMB’s parent company, is part owner of DM and decided to let the little sister bow first. It made for a lively day at the fair, however some of the celebrities that fly into town just in time for the ABMB opening seemed to be missing. The only star spotting at DM — other than the band OK Go, which was performing at the fair — was Naomi Campbell, although we later crossed paths with Pharrell Williams at the opening for Friends With You’s new shop in the Miami Design… Read More

Art

Friend Shopping with Paper’s Kim Hastreiter at Partners & Spade

By Ian Volner on

Partners & Spade is the latest venture from New York’s unlikeliest fashion-lifestyle-design impresario: married to a handbag institution, brother to Dickie Roberts, Former Child Star, Andy Spade has put some of the proceeds from the sale of wife Kate’s eponymous line of apparel towards opening his new brand-consultancy studio and storefront on Great Jones Street in Noho with partner Anthony Sperduti. Open weekends only (weekdays by appointment), Partners & Spade is a rumpus room for Spade’s select band of merry consumerist pranksters; last month, artist Mike Mills stuffed the place with an entire collection devoted to the year 1971, while Maira Kalman assembled a saleable shrine of items made by her late husband, graphic designer Tibor Kalman. Now the circle of fun has widened, with the opening last week of a show curated by Paper editrix and cultural switchboard Kim Hastreiter.… Read More

Art

Exclusive: Artist Kenny Scharf on Warhol, Donuts, and the Art of Throwing Parties

By Jane McCarthy on

Artist Kenny Scharf‘s work screams for fun. Embracing the color and vivacity of everyday objects, especially confectionery foodstuffs, his pieces incorporate TV and consumer culture iconography to transporting effect. The gorgeous, hefty new monograph chronicles the artist’s work from the late ’70s, when he was new to the Lower East Side, palling around with compatriots Basquiat and Keith Haring, through his astronomical climb in the ’80s, to the present resurgence in the popularity of his work.

Flavorpill’s Jane McCarthy recently gave Scharf a call to hear about his love for donuts, futurism, and face paint and to get his take on the perennial New York/LA… Read More