Kenny Scharf - Bad Girls, 1989

Kenny Scharf - Bad Girls, 1989

Lithograph done with 9 colors and 10 plates on velin arches blanc paper

Printed by 1989 AC&T, Japan
Hand signed and numbered PP by Kenny Scharf on the front
This is a unique hand signed and annotated Printer's Proof (PP), made of complex, multi-plate lithography aside from the regular edition of 50 by Kenny Scharf in 1989. Extremely rare stateside.
This print, entitled "Bad Girls", has Japanese text and was part of a series of works printed by the Japanese Publisher 1989 AC&T. Kenny Scharf prints from the 1980s are very desirable; not too many of them on the market.

The late 1980s was also Scharf’s classic East Village/Tony Shafrazi period. The Japanese text in “Bad Girls” reads “I want a lover” – or “I want a boyfriend/girlfriend.” The yellow text lettering besides the female image reads “A lie?/Really?/You’re kidding?/No way?”.

During the late 1980s, Sharf became increasingly interested in incorporating imagery from popular culture beyond the United States – especially Japan. In fact, 1989 was the height of “Japan mania” – and Japanese pop culture had enormous cachet in New York. American artists and designers were fascinated with East Asian consumer culture, anime, manga, neon graphics, and imported visual styles. Scharf was part of that larger cultural moment, alongside artists interested in collapsing distinctions between high art, street culture, advertising and global popular imagery. Scharf was fascinated by manga and anime aesthetics; Japanese advertising; neon signage; consumer graphics; the collision of East and West in pop culture.

Rather than simply decorating this print with “Asian” motifs, here, Scharf assembles fragments of Japanese popular culture: a woman in a kimono, Japanese text, comic-book style dialogue, glamorous Western (blond) women, television/movie imagery, cosmic background and graffiti-like overlays. In the late 1980s, Scharf loved creating visual collisions between different kinds of mass media: cartoons, advertising, science fiction, Hollywood glamour and international pop culture.

The title Bad Girls, featuring Japanese text about wanting a lover, together with the surprised exclamation “Uso?” (“No Way”), gives this piece the feeling of a comic book or soap opera scene, where Scharf is cleverly remixing romance manga, advertising and celebrity imagery into one exuberant, and very hip, Pop composition. The combination of fluorescent pink, turquoise, yello and black is quintessential Scharf from this period.
This work has been elegantly floated on a black marble matting and framed in a museum quality handmade wood frame under UV plexiglass.
Measurements:
Framed
36.5 inches (vertical) by 31 inches (horizontal) by 2 inches
Artwork:
29.5 inches (vertical) by 22 inches (horizontal)