Part of a VR series that Beeple released for free public use. Courtesy of W1 Curates

Mike Winklemann, AKA Beeple, shot to fame after his digital artwork EVERYDAY: THE FIRST 5000 DAYS became the first ever purely non-fungible-token (NFT) to be sold at Christie’s, and was auctioned off for just shy of 70 million dollars in cryptocurrency. Darius Sanai spoke to the artist at his solo show at W1 Curates in Oxford Street, London

LUX: There is a lot of societal commentary in your digital artwork. Do you set out to do that, or is it something that develops?
Mike Winkelmann (Beeple): I guess I set out to do it. Im trying to predict things that are going to be issues in the future, or trends that I see developing now. This piece is talking about Natanz. Basically, the US didn’t confirm this, but it was speculated that they blew up the Iranian nuclear reactor. This is talking about how, in the future, I think there’s going to be  more warfare like that where they get into a computer system and f*ck some sh*t up.

If this is the first instance of a computer programme being used to physically blow things up, I don’t think it will be the last. I think it will happen more and more. It’s terrorists getting into a computer system to blow up an electrical plant. I think more things like that will happen.

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LUX: Can you tell me about your ‘Everydays’ piece?
B: These are ‘Everydays’ in motion, where I made a picture each day and then occasionally I’d think it might be interesting if I animated it. I would take maybe 3 or 4 days and animate a little 15-second scene of that picture. This was a picture of when Trump locked himself in the White House. This was when Elon [Musk] had his baby, and named it X Æ A-12.

Some of them are not specifically about something. That one was during coronavirus when people started talking about killer hornets. This is just some weird Michael Jackson meme. And so on.

LUX: When you started back in the 2000s did you consider yourself a graphic designer, an artist, a filmmaker, or something else?
B: I considered what I was making to be art, just regular art, no different from anybody else. I was just using a different medium. But I considered myself a designer, because the way I made money was through solving visual problems for people. People were asking for concert visuals for Lady Gaga, or concert visuals for the Superbowl. So I’d take the brief of XYZ and say “okay, I’ll do that.”

LUX: So, it’s a practical application?
B: I know the tools; I can build you whatever you want. You tell me what to do and I’ll do it. I did it for money and that was it, while I put most of my real energy into work where I could do whatever I wanted.

The more of this work that I put out there for free, the better I got, until clients like Louis Vuitton were contacting me. It was really like I was a designer by day and also carving away a large amount of time to do my own work, that I wasn’t trying to sell, there was no concept of people collecting it. Art is just something you make and put online and people experience it and that’s it, and it was quite a shift when people began to start collecting it. That was just not a part of the way I thought about art.

Panel talk with Beeple (Mike Winkelmann), Nick Knight from Showstudio and Mark Dale from W1Curates. Courtesy of W1 Curates

LUX: What enabled these to become collector pieces?
B: The NFTs. The NFT thing, which took a lot of people coming up to me and saying, I think you should check this out. At first, I wasn’t sure, I thought it was just weird crypto sh*t, not my thing. Then finally it clicked and I thought, wait a second, this could be the same as moments in the past where people have refused to believe something was art. Photography, that’s not art, it’s just people taking photos. Graffiti, that’s not art, it’s vandalism, how could it be art? Then everyone says “oh wait! I guess it’s art.”

I think that’s what is about to happen with digital art. At the moment it’s this thing that everybody knows and everybody sees all the time and is actually completely ubiquitous in the visual language of our society. It’s websites, it’s voices, it’s TV, it’s video games, everything you see is visual. Art has touched it, but it’s not capital A art, because until recently, there wasn’t a meaningful way to collect it. You could print it out, you could give somebody a thumb drive, but that didn’t really resonate with people until the NFT thing. The ability to prove ownership resonated with people.

LUX: Is there a tension between the traditional capital A art world and the world of digital art?
B: 100%, yes. I think people in the digital world think that because we had the sale at Christie, we’re part of the art world now. In reality, there’s a lot of people still calling bullsh*t on us; we’ve got a long way to go to convince everybody that we’re the real deal.

It’s come a long way in 2 years, I will say that, much faster than I thought. A couple of years ago I would have believed it would have taken us 10 years to get to where we are now. It’s a matter of waiting for it to click for people that the stuff they take for granted, because it’s so ubiquitous, is actually made by people. It’s not that different from painting a picture.  You’re sitting down, you’re producing a picture, it’s got a message, it’s got an aesthetic, it’s the exact same thing.

LUX: Yet many people resist calling it art. Why do you think this is?
B: I think it is just very new, it came out of nowhere. I was as dumbfounded as anyone by these developments. But I think when people have an experience that connects with them emotionally, like any other type of medium, any other type of art, then it will click with them. But they see the headlines and they see “monkey JPG selling for crazy amount” which makes it easier to call bullsh*t on the whole thing. There’s a lot of distinction between the different things people are doing in the NFT space, with some people looking towards a more baseball-type, collectible thing rather than the art side of things. Then there are people who are trying to make serious work that, in my opinion, is no different from any other artist working in any other medium.

Beeple’s Everydays, the First 5000 Days. Courtesy of W1 Curates.

LUX: Is there not a lot of bullsh*t in the traditional art world as well.
B: Yes, but everybody’s used to that bullsh*t. Also, there are so many people who think NFTs look like crap. Most traditional art looks like crap, you just can’t see it as easily. You can go online and instantly see hundreds of NFTs, but you can’t immediately see hundreds of pieces of traditional art – if you did, you would see a lot of crap I’d promise you that. Or you would see a lot of stuff which looks fine but isn’t new in any way. It’s just the same regurgitated ideas that are 100 years old. It looks more like what you would expect art to look like, but it’s not good. I could make some abstract art that anybody would agree is art,  but it doesn’t matter, that’s not good. I think I’m trying to make things for 100 years from now. I think a lot of traditional art is trying to make something that looks like art right now, and half the time it looks like it would have been made 100 years ago.

LUX: Do you think in 100 years people will look at this, you and others, and think this is an inflection point where it changed, just like things changed with Duchamp?
B: We will see. I don’t know, but I think this is definitely a different moment. I think it will be seen as an inflection point because you’re going to see a massive shift as digital tools and digital distribution become more a part of art, because those advance rapidly, they will continue to advance rapidly with technology. I don’t know a lot about painting but I’m not sure how much it has changed in the last 100 years through technology.

LUX: Does this fit better in the Metaverse?
B: What do you mean by the metaverse? I don’t even know what that means, it’s just a marketing term.

LUX: The space where you can go buy a computer rendition of a Dior gown and put it on an avatar and pay for it. I mean, that’s just the beginning right?
B: Except none of those worlds exist. How much time do you spend in the metaverse?

LUX: Not me, but other people do.
B: No they don’t. If you look at these platforms, nobody is spending any time in them, because they’re not engaging enough. It’s like VR. How much time do you spend in VR? Zero.

I’ve gone all over the world many times and heard people talking about the metaverse, but then they don’t spend any time there themselves. It’s like VR. Fun for 2 seconds and then you’ve done it and you move on.

I don’t think it will always be like that, but I think the first thing we will all consider the metaverse is AR glasses. That is what I think we will consider the first true metaverse is, when all of us are wearing glasses and we can all see a layer of things that are the same, when we can all see a digital sculpture right here, and we can walk around it and we all can point to it, and you see what I’m seeing. Everybody being jacked into VR in a tube of goo, that’s a waste.

Courtesy of W1 Curates

LUX: A traditional collector would buy a painting and put it on their wall. How is this art best displayed?
B: Almost all of the pieces that I have now come with some sort of physical element. Some of them are titanium back-screens, and others are like paintings or giant prints, or these human size boxes. A lot of the pieces have physical components like that because to me it’s important to have a physical way to experience the work. To me, it makes it much more visceral and much more impactful.

LUX: Are attitudes towards digital art changing?
B: Yes, things are changing a lot. We just had Deji Art Museum in China buy a piece, there are pieces at MoMa right now, you’re seeing a bunch of museums invest. I think when people see work that can withstand criticism and has some actual depth to it, then they’ll change their mind.

But it is taking time. I think people who are truly thoughtful and are approaching it with an open mind, with the attitude that they don’t know everything about art and this could be something new that they want to be a part of, those people are coming around very quickly. But that’s not everybody. People have to change their mind of what this is, and that doesn’t often happen quickly.

LUX: And you mentioned street art and graffiti before. Is there a parallel with what happened there 30 years ago where that wasn’t considered art?
B: 100%, I think it’s the exact same thing. I look at this work as the street art of the internet, because you can post anything you want there’s this free for all thing. All street art is trying to get people’s attention, the street part of it is “permissionless” art where they were going out and thinking, I’m not going to get anybody’s permission to do this, I’m just going to do it. That’s how I’ve always operated. I don’t need anybody’s permission to show this, I made it, I put it on the internet, that’s it.

That’s very different from the traditional art world where you make a piece of art, then you’ve got to wait for a gallery or a museum and somebody’s got to look at it and say yes, I will show that. Nobody has to say yes on the internet.

More from Beeple’s VR Series. Courtesy of W1 Curates.

LUX: How did you engage with art when you were a kid?
B: I went to school for computer science. As a kid, I didn’t do a massive amount of art on the side. I was always doing a lot of stuff on computers. At first I wanted to make video games, but then I got to college and I saw some people who wanted to make video games, and I realised I didn’t want it that badly. I was spending all of my time making weird little abstract clips that had no inherent purpose; they were just little tiny artistic expressions.

I was spending my time making short films too, and so to begin there was no sense of wanting to get people to collect my work or making a living off of it. I actually really liked the fact that I didn’t make a living off of it because it meant I could say whatever I wanted. I never cared about commercial art, I just wanted to make people happy. So I had a good separation there, I could say whatever I wanted without thinking about whether this is something someone’s going to hang on their wall. Because a lot of it is not something you want to hang on your wall, to be quite honest.

LUX: The world is getting weirder and worse. Does that help your work?
B: I don’t think it’s getting worse, but I think it will get weirder. That’s also why I make this sh*t weird; because people think that could never happen. But Donald Trump was just your f*cking president! A man-child with no experience who is paying off porn stars. 20 years ago you wouldn’t have said that could happen.

Read more: Visual art and music meet in Shezad Dawood’s latest exhibition

I look at what happened with me and this crazy $70 million sale. That was honestly a weird bi-product of the conversation about art and digital art, and then crypto with nothing to do with art coming into it. As technologies combine like that, in ways we didn<‘t expect, weird things happen. It’s similar to Trump being elected and the role social media played there. Social media comes and everyone thinks it’s great and Mark Zuckerburg is a f*cking hero, liberating all these people. Then time goes on and you think, wait a second, we didn’t see this coming.

That will probably keep happening. There’s gonna be things we didn’t see coming and it can have massively profound effects. The world is so connected now and so digital already; these things can happen so fast. Suddenly millions of people get behind an idea or a movement. I mean, look at the NFTs. Again, we went from zero to being this billion-dollar industry in months. I think weird things are going to happen more and more.

Courtesy of W1 Curates

LUX: Would you like to be recognised by collections who don’t recognise digital art? Is that important to you or do you not care?
B: Yes, I would like to change their mind. I’ve been trying to help educate people in the traditional art world because I think there’s a lot of people in the crypto world who don’t actually care about art. Their allegiance is to crypto, my allegiance is to art.

I just learned about crypto 2 years ago, and I learned about NFTs literally months before that sale. The traditional art world also has a lot of people who, in my opinion, are not in it for the right reasons, they’re just in it for money. But there’s a lot more people who are truly passionate about this, who truly want to see art evolve and are interested in the continuation of art history and contextualising this moment within it.

I’ve been trying to play in both worlds to some extent. There’s a lot more that can be done in terms of NFTs and art being more dynamic. There’s a lot more to come.

Find out more: www.beeple-crap.com

Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour at Château de Chantilly outside Paris. Photograph by Gavin Elder

Filmmaker Gavin Elder has created films for the likes David Lynch, Mark Ronson, Duran Duran, ACDC and Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour. Here, he speaks to Paige Nelson about his career highlights, the challenges of shooting in a Roman amphitheatre and capturing the atmosphere of live music on video

1. Did always want to work in the film industry?

I picked up my Dad’s Super 8 camera when I was ten years old. The unique Super 8 sound, and the tactile feel of film running through the camera lit something inside me.

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2. Who have been the most interesting people to work with so far?

Working with David Gilmour has been an absolute high point. I remember the very first day we started filming at Bray Studios, he was rehearsing with the other members of Pink Floyd [Rick Wright and Nick Mason], and someone shouted, ‘Let’s do C Numb!’ They launched into ‘Comfortably Numb’, and the hairs on the back of my neck jumped up.

Fans at an ACDC concert in Buenos Aires. Photograph by Gavin Elder

3. How do you create the atmosphere of a concert in a film?

This varies from artist to artist, but I think the most important element is for the performer to be relaxed enough with the process of filming that they focus on the music and their performance. My role is to then select camera positions and capture the show without being obtrusive. The musical highlights, subtle glances and infectious smiles between band members together with the audience create the magic.

Read more: Chopard’s Caroline Scheufele on versatile jewellery design

4. Is there any person you would drop everything to do a documentary on?

Don’t they say you should never meet your heroes? Working with David Lynch on a project for Dom Pérignon was extraordinary; he had such a great sense of humour and incredible focus while working. I remember the laughter, and a great sense of team work.

In 2011, Elder created a short film capturing behind-the-scenes footage of David Lynch (above)  shooting Dom Pérignon’s new campaign. Photograph by Gavin Elder.

5. Are there any artists who have inspired your works?

I think street art as much as fine art has influenced my approach. I’ve made films with Faile, Shepard Fairey and street artist Ludo. Giles Walker made a phenomenal piece titled The Last Supper which I documented. I travel extensively and different cities around the world contribute to the vitality and energy in my work.

6. What are biggest challenges of any project, and how has the pandemic affected the film industry?

When we filmed Live At Pompeii all the equipment had to be hauled by hand down a specially built road to the edge of the Roman amphitheatre – a logistical challenge, which the local Italians rose to. During the show, a rogue drone flew dangerously low over the audience and a laser team tried to disable the drone’s camera with a focused laser beam. The drone footage has never surfaced so perhaps they were successful.

The pandemic has been devastating [for the film industry]! Numerous projects have been cancelled, although some work has started to trickle back now. There have been some interesting online concerts and new approaches to entertaining fans, but it’s difficult to replicate the live feel, the bass in your chest, the shared experience, the intensity.

Follow Gavin Elder on Instagram: @gavin_elder

Kenny Scharf reenacting his emoji-like paintings’ emotions with ‘Scardey’ (above his head) and ‘Tribali’ on his side

American artist Kenny Scharf’s work straddles a line between pop-art, street art and neo-expressionism. Through surreal imagery and humour, he challenges the elitist boundaries of fine art. Granted exclusive access to his new LA studio, LUX editor-at-large and artist Maryam Eisler spoke to Scharf about cosmic donuts, emojis and his friendship with Keith Haring.

Photography by Maryam Eisler

Maryam Eisler: You posted on your Instagram page that you found the black hole (referring to your image of a donut suspended in space) long before the black hole was photographed! Tell me about that.
Kenny Scharf: Well, I’ve been making cosmic donuts for quite some time now. I was always intrigued by this theory that the universe was shaped like a donut. I love the way donuts look….so it seemed so natural to do donuts in space! So when I saw the new blackhole image, I said ‘Uhhhh that looks like a donut!!’ I couldn’t help it.

Maryam Eisler: So I cannot help but ask you the question: where do we end up? In the donut’s hole or do we keep sparkling like its sprinkles?
Kenny Scharf: I don’t really know…maybe it’s even more sparkly in the hole!

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Maryam Eisler: Would it be fair to say that you invented the emoji?
Kenny Scharf: I guess I did. I’ve been doing it [referring to the round paintings] for 40 years before the actual internet came about.

Maryam Eisler: So copyright on the emoji?
Kenny Scharf: Yeah I need to get a penny every time someone uses those emojis. Actually I have my own emojis app. It costs two dollars!

Maryam Eisler: You’ve never been about definition, have you? And pretty much spanned across all mediums…
Kenny Scharf: I’m always wanting to break boundaries. If there’s a border, I’m going to go outside of it. You can’t keep me in. That’s against my…everything!

A view into the mezzanine of Kenny Scharf’s LA studio space

Maryam Eisler: Talk to me about New York in the 80s and the confluence of art, fashion, music, and the night clubs.
Kenny Scharf: When I moved to New York in the late 70s, there weren’t a lot of places artists could show their work or even make their work. There were so many young kids like myself who moved to New York with ambition. There were musicians and writers and people in fashion too. So nightclubs were a great venue to do your thing. Not only were nightclubs a place where you could make and show art, but they were also our livelihood. So we worked a couple nights a week and that was all you needed to pay your bills for the whole week, and you were then free to make your art. So New York became a place where you could move to, as a young artist without money, and find your way and meet other artists. It was this whole community that was just there. I feel very lucky that I arrived at that moment in time. But, I think the nostalgia for the 80s is more about the late 70s’. Because by ‘82, people started dying. I was just in my 20s and I was spending most of the latter part of the 80s going to hospitals and funerals and saying goodbye to friends and people. It was just beyond a nightmare.

Maryam Eisler: From Studio 54 to Club 57, tell me about it.
Kenny Scharf: Studio 54, I only went into once. Everyone knows it was a famous disco, a happening place. But my kind of group was more Punk-rock, New-Wave, downtown and very anti-uptown.

Read more: Artist Sassan Behnam-Bakhtiar on the rise of interest in Iranian art

Maryam Eisler: East Village right?
Kenny Scharf: Yeah. At that time, Manhattan was very different with different parts to it. We hardly ever went north of 14th street, and the uptown people never ventured down to our neighbourhood. Club 57 was an amazing place and it did get its spotlight recently. There was a show at the MoMA that highlighted it. It was just this kind of moment. I don’t know if that kind of gathering place exists anymore, now that everything is online and internet-based. It almost harkened back to Berlin or Paris before the war and to these moments where artists got together and created with and for each other, always testing new ideas.

Kenny adding his final touch to an untitled painting depicting a flower arrangement

Maryam Eisler: A form of inner salon of some sort?
Kenny Scharf: Exactly. And the thing that was so good in retrospect, even though we were all dying to be famous and whatnot, was that we had each other to test out whatever we wanted to do. It was very inspiring. You were able to do whatever you wanted to do in the safety of this audience before you went out into the big world. A chance to incubate ideas.

Maryam Eisler: Would that idea of safety and sanctuary translate into your own Cosmic Taverns?
Kenny Scharf: Yes, that idea is definitely about safety and sanctuary. In fact, the very first one I did was around ‘82 and I was living in an old ramshackle townhouse in the middle of Times Square. Keith Haring was my roommate. It was on 6th Avenue and 42nd street. There was so much madness on the street surrounding us that I would create these environments inside, using artificial things – mostly plastic garbage and appliances and stuff which I would find on the street. And I would create this very chaotic artificial environment that actually acted as a refuge. Let’s call it artificial nature for urbanites!

Maryam Eisler: The idea carries on today. I see it here in your studio. It seems like you still work with found objects, recycled plastic and disused garbage ….
Kenny Scharf: I’m obsessed. I’ve been obsessed with garbage all my life. When I first moved to New York in the late 70s, the whole city was garbage. Nobody was picking it up. Everything I needed for my new life was there on the streets: I found my furniture, my clothes. This whole New Wave scene … we were all wearing 50s clothes because we all found them in the garbage! I feel like trash is such an indicator of the society that we live in. Not only does it show a lot about who we are, but I love the idea that these objects were actually used by somebody, and that they have this whole story and life that I don’t know about. And of course, there’s also recycling and the fact that we are drowning in our own garbage!

A view into the ground floor of Scharf’s studio

Maryam Eisler: From garbage to accessible artistic content, philosophically speaking?
Kenny Scharf: Yes. Philosophically, I’ve always been a proponent of accessibility. When I moved to New York in the late 70s, Conceptual and Minimal art were in fashion. I just didn’t like it. It felt too elitist and I don’t want to be elitist. I’m always staggering this fine line because I want to be in museums, that upper echelon of where art is shown, but I don’t like the idea of alienating anyone either. And I mean Joe Blow on the street who may have never read art history or gone into a single museum before! I would like to get those people interested in art and maybe inspire someone with an uplifting message. My language is the language of art so I don’t want to turn off the art-educated either!

Read more: Why you need to see the Luc Tuymans exhibition at Palazzo Grassi

Maryam Eisler: Isn’t art, at the end of the day, about interaction and connection?
Kenny Scharf: Yes, and communication. I have a message. You have a show in a major museum and you are going to get a certain amount of people to go and see it. You do a mural in a high traffic spot on the street, and you’ll get the same number of people, if not more, seeing it every day. I also love the idea that art goes beyond boundaries. Most people think that art belongs on a wall in a gallery or a museum. I think it should be everywhere. I often like to think about ancient civilisations, the Greeks and the Egyptians, and how they infused art into their everyday objects the same way I do. I really believe that by doing this, you elevate your daily existence.

‘I’ve been obsessed with garbage all my life!’

Maryam Eisler: Your emojis are a form of hieroglyphic art, right? Image after image, you try to describe a state of mind, an emotion, a space, a place …. There’s an emotive aspect to your art.
Kenny Scharf: Yes. Communication, feelings, history… Art that I love is art that emotionally gets to me, and I want to convey the same thing to people. I want people to feel.

Maryam Eisler: I love your lack of concern about the monetary value of your art in a world dominated by the $ sign . You paint cars and give them away as long as they’re not resold for gain!
Kenny Scharf: Yes, I’ve done 250 cars. We take pictures. People have crossed the line only two or three times in the past. Not cool.

One of Scharf’s 250 painted cars, utilitarian artworks which he creates for free, with the promise that they are never to be sold for gain

Maryam Eisler: From Cosmic Taverns to Flintstone’s cavern. Where did it all start?
Kenny Scharf: The Jetsons and the Flintstones? Back in the early 80s, when I was trying to figure out how to get myself out there, I realised nobody in the gallery world was going to be interested in me if I just told them ‘Hey I make art! Come and see.’ My whole group was in the street and we met all these graffiti artists with incredible paintings on subway cars; they used the whole city as their canvas basically. Around the Times Square show in ‘81, a lot of downtown, Punk, New Wave art-types like myself, met with all the uptown Bronx graffiti artists, and there was this very interesting cultural mix moment. I had a studio at PS1 and I lived in the East Village so I used to ride my bike at two in the morning down from the 59th street bridge to the East Village and bomb the walls the whole way down. I thought that I wanted to do something that was very personal to me in many ways, the Flintstones! Not only because I grew up with them but because conceptually I love the idea of the Flintstones representing the past and the Jetsons representing the future. And everybody knows who they are. I wanted to do something that people already connected with but that was also part of me. And at one point, the past and the future collided and created mutants which were my own characters.

‘Conceptually I love the idea of the Flintstones representing the past and the Jetsons representing the future. And at one point, the past and the future collided and created mutants which were my own characters.’

Maryam Eisler: So I haven’t brought up Keith Haring and Jean Michel Basquiat purposefully. Could you give me one word, one anecdote or a wonderful memory for each?
Kenny Scharf: I mean I have so many memories. I met Keith and Jean Michel in 1978, basically my second week of arrival from LA to New York. And we all had this instant connection. It’s like when you meet somebody and you don’t really know why you are so attracted to them and vice versa. I met Jean Michel and introduced him to Keith. The three of us were a little bit of a posse. I used to go around with Jean Michel and Keith and draw and paint on the street. One of my first memories was when I went to this apartment where Jean Michel was living; it was just about a block away from where I was living, and I saw these collages he had on the wall and I was just blown away. I swear I almost fell on the floor. It was one of those moments when you see something and there is so much energy coming off this piece of paper that it literally floored me. I’ll never forget that moment.

Maryam Eisler: Can you share your last memory with Jean Michel?
Kenny Scharf: Of course. With Jean Michel, our relationship was not easy. It started off very close and then he kind of turned on me. We had this very volatile relationship where I didn’t know which Jean Michel I was going to get on any particular day, and actually, it was the source of a lot of stress for me. I really cared for him a lot, and he could be really difficult. So in the late 80s, all that amazing explosion from the early 80s, had a little backlash where that kind of expression was not ‘the thing’ any longer and Jean Michel, as always, really took everything to heart and he was just really down. There was this moment where I remember connecting with him on the street, where he could look at me not as competition and an enemy anymore and realise that we were both on the same side of the line; he let down the guard. We had this special moment. I didn’t know he was about to die.

Maryam Eisler: I read the book The Widow Basquiat. It seems like he did that uncertain thing to everyone?
Kenny Scharf: He did it to the ones he cared about. He was always testing. He was really…very…disturbed. He really was.

Maryam Eisler: A sign of artistic genius, perhaps?
Kenny Scharf: Yes, I know.

Untitled 2019 by Kenny Scharf

Maryam Eisler: What was your last memory with [Andy] Warhol?
Kenny Scharf: Right before he went in for the gallbladder surgery, I remember having a similar thing as I did with Basquiat – not that we ever had any down times because Andy was always great to me. He was always very supportive. But I remember…I dunno maybe he wasn’t feeling well or something. I remember I was in a restaurant and there was an emotional connection where I really felt something strong with him. Then I went to Brazil a week later and actually Keith [Haring] was with me when we found out about his death.

Maryam Eisler: And lastly, with Keith?
Kenny Scharf: I was the last person to be with him. So I was sitting with him and he wasn’t able to talk anymore. There’s no way I cannot cry, talking about my last moments with him. He was very agitated and I just told him ‘I know you can hear me’; I also told him that he should just calm down and relax because I was with him. And as his body relaxed, I said ‘You know you’re going to live on forever.’ I was telling him everything I believed and felt….It was really hard…losing my best friend.

Maryam Eisler: For you personally, to perform the act of creation, do you have to be at an emotional high or low? Are you really that happy-faced person?
Kenny Scharf: Sometimes. All the emotions, I am. I am a happy person. I’m an optimist despite a million things that are freaking me out. My feeling is that if I’m not an optimist, then I will kill myself. So I force myself to be optimistic no matter how I may be feeling inside. I take the stance and I do it. Because I’m here and I want to make the best of it. Now, I have grandkids and I’m really freaked out about the world they’re inheriting, so I have no choice but to be an optimist for them.

Maryam Eisler: Speaking of the world, one word on Trump?
Kenny Scharf: Piece of shit. Or just shit. Everything about what he represents is the antithesis of everything that I believe in. I’ve always felt that way all the way back to the 80s. I actually met him ten years ago, and I was so freaked out by his lack of normal decent connection. He was just so creepy. The whole thing nauseated me so much. The day of the election I couldn’t stop crying. I cried for a week. It was devastating and here we are two years later, and I still cannot believe this has happened. His name and the word President do not go hand in hand.

Maryam Eisler: You are now back in LA , your ‘home’? You left the concrete for greener pastures and blue skies, with a much more laid back attitude and even more space? And, of course, your family.
Kenny Scharf: I love it here. I was bouncing back and forth between LA and New York but when my grandson was born I realised that I didn’t want to be away anymore. I am completely in love with my grandkids. Obsessed in fact. I never realised how great being a grandpa was actually going to be.

Kenny Scharf’s solo exhibition ‘blue blood’ runs from 2 May to 28 July 2019 at the David Totah gallery, New York City

Discover Kenny Scharf’s portfolio: kennyscharf.com

The artist in his signature (dis)guise in Hong Kong

Street artist Alec Monopoly’s distinctive creations are a blend of subversive graffiti culture and post-pop colour. And he has now been tasked with rejuvenating the culture at watch brand TAG Heuer. Nathalie Breitschwerdt catches up with the elusive – and anonymous – LA-based graffiti genius.

The manufacture of luxury watch brand TAG Heuer consists of a series of modern buildings on the edge of La Chaux-de-Fonds, in western Switzerland. The town is built on a US-style grid system, seemingly at odds with the rolling forested hills of the Jura that surround it.

Inside, it’s as you would expect a high-end watch factory to be. A sanitized workshop floor contains rows of technicians piecing together different watch components; other rooms contain test laboratories and machines for finishing the timepieces.

Walk from the workshop through some connecting corridors to the corporate offices, however, and you are greeted with an extraordinary sight. It is a glass-walled room with paints, canvases and strikingly colourful artworks, finished and in progress.

There was no artist at work on the day we visited – he was back in his home city of New York – but Alec Monopoly is no ordinary artist in-residence. Not long ago, his art was illegal. A graffiti artist, his trade involved tagging (painting) buildings – other people’s buildings – with his distinctive design. Monopoly developed a cult following on Instagram, and was then discovered by pioneering, maverick watch CEO Jean-Claude Biver. A key player in the revival of the luxury watch industry and now head of the LVMH watch division (which includes TAG Heuer), Biver made Monopoly a brand ambassador, launching the partnership at Art Basel Miami. Explaining why the artist would be given his own studio up in the Swiss mountains, Biver explained that Monopoly would play a key role in updating the brand for the new generation. “The most important thing is that Alec will be our art provocateur,” Biver said. “He will bring his influence inside the company. He will infuse the culture of TAG Heuer. That is the real job.”

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Monopoly’s real identity is still a secret: he hides his face behind a red bandana. But his post-Roy Lichtenstein takes on pop culture characters (and specifically the banker from the Monopoly board game) give him a universal and instantly recognisable appeal – as does his nuanced take on the world’s economic system.

Monopoly’s artworks are now appearing in TAG Heuer stores around the world, and he is more likely to be courted than taken to court by the property world now.

Alec Monopoly’s depiction of TAG Heuer ’s CEO Jean-Claude Biver at Art Basel Miami

LUX: When did you start making street art?
Alec Monopoly: I have been painting on the streets of New York since I was 12 years old. Growing up in the city, I loved skateboarding and the graffiti culture in the city. In 2008, I moved to Los Angeles and that’s when I started integrating my artwork into street art. I was a graffiti artist before and that’s when I became a street artist.

LUX: How has the perception of street art changed since you first started?
Alec Monopoly: It’s changed big time. It’s become more accepted into pop culture recently, whereas before it was much more frowned upon. In the early days especially, graffiti was looked on as pollution and destruction, but now it’s transforming the grey walls of cities into things of beauty. If you look at the Miami Design District and Wynwood, it’s changed a dangerous neighbourhood with abandoned buildings and actually turned it into something beautiful. Take a look at the Wynwood Walls where some of the best artists in the world come to paint; it’s a great example of how street art has been accepted into society.

Read more: Megan Balch & Jaime Barker, Founders of Flagpole on their inspirations and creative process

LUX: Tell us about your fascination with the Monopoly Man.
Alec Monopoly: I started painting the Monopoly Man in 2008 when the economy started to dip. I was playing the game Monopoly, which I love, and was watching the news where I saw Bernie Madoff being arrested. I remember thinking how ironic that situation was, as he sort of looked like the Monopoly Man. There was so much meaning to it. People really connect with the Monopoly Man, so that’s when I started painting him for fun in the street. Originally it was for fun, but it also became more real due to the situation. That’s when I started spreading more intricate characters into my paintings, like Robert De Niro, Twiggy and Jack Nicholson.

An Alec Monopoly creation in Miami’s Design District

LUX: Why do you think your artwork is in such high demand?
Alec Monopoly: People can really connect with my work. I create a lot of work that has a positive message; it’s fun and brings happiness to people. A lot of people have found that my work is inspirational. Having the Monopoly Man with bags of money and seeing him run with them, it’s kind of like a good luck charm, which you see in the offices of CEOs. Now, I draw a lot of inspiration from life: travelling, meeting new people, experiencing new things. I truly live through my artwork and express who I am as a character, as a person, through my paintings. I think it’s important for an artist to express themselves through their work in a way where people can see life through their eyes – my eyes.

LUX: Are there certain places in the world that are “street art hubs”?
Alec Monopoly: I would say there are different cities where street art is more popular. Berlin would be one of the top cities for emerging street artists and for street art in general because it’s more accepted into the culture there. I would say LA is great due to the massive walls throughout the city and then, of course, Miami Wynwood is the Mecca of street art, for now.

Alec Monopoly tags for TAG at a pop-up store in California

LUX: You’re a brand ambassador for TAG Heuer. How did that come about?
Alec Monopoly: It came about through an organic relationship with Mr Biver. We met in the south of France in my studio and created a relationship. I was really taken aback by him – he’s a genius. He’s like the Steve Jobs of the watch industry. Hearing him talk and his passion, we really connected as I have a great passion for watches myself. My dream has always been to create a watch with my artwork in the dial. We really saw eye to eye with the collaboration and it’s been an amazing journey for both of us. All the watches sold out immediately!

LUX: Is it strange for a street artist to be associated with a luxury brand or do you see it as a step in the right direction?
Alec Monopoly: I definitely think it’s a step in a positive direction. I’m very picky who I do brand collaborations with, but I think TAG is the perfect fit. It’s the perfect vehicle to pursue one of my dreams, which was to put my art inside a watch. I was very happy to do it.

Read more: Luxury in the treetops at Chewton Glen

LUX: Anonymity and graffiti seem to go hand-in-hand for street artists such as Banksy and yourself. Why is that important to you?
Alec Monopoly: For me, it represents the freedom to keep painting in the streets where I would like to paint. I paint in some places where it’s kind of a grey area with regards to the law, so it’s important to remain anonymous. It’s kind of fun too; I can take my hat, my mask and my jewellery off and no one really knows who I am – it’s kind of nice to have that double life. It’s very interesting that when I cover my face people recognise me and when I don’t, people have no idea who I am. It’s the weirdest thing!

LUX: How do you define art and its purpose?
Alec Monopoly: I see art as very important for culture. It’s a way of seeing what’s going on in that part of history and what’s going on in the world. For me, it’s a form of therapy and expression, but it also brings happiness to other people’s lives. When I’m painting one of these graffiti walls, I’m transforming that neighbourhood through bright colours. People driving by, kids growing up there – I try to bring them as much happiness as possible. I’ve met kids who started painting their own versions of the wall and creating their own art, which is really inspirational to me.

LUX: What do you do when not making art?
Alec Monopoly: Honestly, I’m always creating art. Yesterday I was at the beach and started making these drawings in the sand – I can’t even relax when I’m at the beach! I love art, it’s who I am.

View Alec Monopoly’s portfolio of work at alecmonopoly.com and Tag Heuer’s collections at tagheuer.com