Kenny Scharf and I have known each other since the early 80s when we met at a party I crashed in his loft. (He gives the BEST parties.) I was looking through a stack of paintings he had stored in a bath tub and we struck up a conversation… I’d be surprised if it wasn’t while smoking a joint he was carrying). I knew his work from the legendary dept. store, Fiorucci. He was best friends and roommates with Keith Haring back in the day and we have MANY old friends in common. He’s a great guy who really hasn’t changed at all, even though he’s one of the few art world “stars” of today. He lives mostly in LA, has a house in Rio, and for the last decade or so, has kept a studio in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. But he’s moving out of Bushwick now, and he just gave his last Cosmic Cavern party last Friday. (I’ve been to them before but I missed last week. Like an idiot, I fell asleep…) The basement of his Bushwick place is a crazy blacklight installation which has been the scene of MANY sweaty disco parties.
ANYWAY, yesterday he was clearing out the studio, getting rid of of plants, selling a few odds and ends so, I arranged to come by and get my old green Beetle custom-painted… what Kenny calls “Karbomz!”. He’s painted, free of charge, some 140 cars in across the U.S. mostly, and documented the process for a book he’ll eventually publish, showing the finished result… along with Karbombz sightings. He works very fast, although, since it was a sunny day, and we were hanging out, he spent over an hour and kept adding and refining his work. After we looked the pics he shot, he added the finishing touch, a tooth sparkle to the front grill and a speeding glob. He also painted a collector/friend’s Prada coat, to the protest of her young daughter who was SO embarrassed by this. Kenny said his daughter, Malia, now grown, was the same way. If you’re lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time, and want your own Karbombz! tell him Trey sent you. Follow him on Instagram to see tons of others.
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