Kenny Scharf
When Kenny Scharf arrived in NYC in the early 1980’s, he quickly met and befriended Keith Haring and Jean Michel Basquiat; There, amongst the fervent creative bustle of a depressed downtown scene the trio would soon change the way we think about art, the world, and ourselves. But unlike Haring and Basquiat, who both died tragically young, Kenny lived through cataclysmic shifts in the East Village as well as the ravages of AIDS and economic depression. ‘When Worlds Collide’ is about the art of fun, about living life out loud, despite setbacks, and about Kenny Scharf’s particular do-it- yourself, high-tone, technicolor artistic vision.
In August of 1949, Life Magazine ran a banner headline that begged the question: “Jackson Pollock: Is he the greatest living painter in the United States?” The film is a look back into the life of an extraordinary man, a man who has fittingly been called “an artist dedicated to concealment, a celebrity who nobody knew.” As he struggled with self-doubt, engaging in a lonely tug-of-war between needing to express himself and wanting to shut the world out, Pollock began a downward spiral.