This June, experimental art gallery Nanzuka Underground is hosting Kenny Scharf, a leading artist of the 1980s East Village Art Movement, who gained prominence alongside Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring.
The exhibition centres on Scharf’s new series Shimishimikao!, inspired by the phenomenon where blobs resemble faces. It also features a diverse range of works cultivated over his 50-year career, including the Moodz series, composed of expressive circular faces, and the Dire Headlines series, which is characterised by its use of newspaper clippings of environmental destruction in the background.
Having spent his formative years in Los Angeles and New York during the 1980s, Scharf has long channelled his concerns about nuclear threats and environmental destruction into his work. In the Shimishimikao series, expressive faces proliferate like dividing cells, creating a vibrant visual rhythm. Beneath these playful, pop-infused images lies Scharf’s desire to spread positivity while confronting, rather than ignoring, the realities of the world around us.