LA photographer Trevor Hernandez, known as @gangculture on Instagram, took all of the images included in this article. He was commissioned in 2018 by Frieze LA to photograph the Paramount Pictures Studios and surrounding Los Angeles landscape

In early 2019, Frieze invited surrealist photographer Trevor Hernandez to point his Instagram-focused lens, @gangculture, at its Los Angeles fair. He is one of a new generation of artists who, using social media, are building on and subverting the traditional tenets of surrealism. Katrina Kufer investigates

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“When I think of surrealist photography I usually think of the term with a capital ‘S’ that refers to a specific movement in the early 20th century, which is nearly 100 years ago!” remarks Rebecca Morse, curator in the Wallis Annenberg Photography Department at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). The visual characteristics of surrealist photography were defined by pivotal figures such as Man Ray, Dora Maar, Hans Bellmer and René Magritte in the 1920s and 30s who, reacting against the medium’s widespread intent to document reality, focused on image manipulation to create chance and dream-like compositions. While today’s version of surrealism is still marked by a sense of displacement, it is subtler and less engineered by the artists, who instead choose subjects that still respond to how reality – now largely presented via social media – is represented. Surrealism’s stylistic diversity can be fantastical or literal, clear or abstract, staged or organic and may prove difficult to code visually, but that hasn’t stopped photography being lauded as “the great unknown, undervalued aspect of surrealist practice” by art critic Rosalind Krauss. Surrealism’s oscillating, paradoxical nature, in tackling how evolving technologies and modes of seeing impact experienced realities, is what renders the movement, which underwent a revamp in the 1970s and 80s, so fresh and relevant.

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Krauss’s seminal 1985 essay ‘Photography in the Service of Surrealism’ argues against the belief, based on surrealism’s foundation of reorganizing perceptions of reality, that surrealism and photography could not coexist. However, as Krauss writes, “Surrealist photography exploits the very special connection to reality with which all photography is endowed. Photography is an imprint or transfer of the real.” It is with this relationship between photography and reality in mind that today’s artists have translated surrealism and taken it into the digital realm.

Instagram: @gangculture

Instagram: @gangculture

Photography subverts reality through the idea of the uncanny – that is, transforming the recognizable into something unfamiliar through unexpected contexts, strange juxtapositions and spatial collapse. The view through the lenses of artists such as Cindy Sherman, Lee Friedlander and Garry Winogrand is a less analog and more nuanced one, closer to an askew déjà vu rather than German photographer Herbert List’s fotografia metafisica style from the early 1930s, which envisioned dream-like states. Where surrealist photographers in the early 20th century were manipulating the image through solarization, montage, multiple exposure and distortion, artists now prefer to seek out moments that disrupt space naturally: “Think of Friedlander’s photographs of his shadowy head on the back of a woman’s fur jacket, or Winogrand’s hilarious image of a woman who looks strangely like the rhinoceros she is standing next to at the zoo,” says Morse. “Many individuals who work in this way are street photographers who use small hand-held cameras.” LA-based Mike Slack, Barak Zemer or Trevor Hernandez exemplify current photographers who are bringing this approach into the 21st century. In fact, Hernandez, who often uses his iPhone to capture LA’s urban landscape with a conceptual, sculptural edge under Instagram handle @gangculture, collaborated with Frieze LA in 2019 for a commissioned series. “Surrealist photography tends to create a specific narrative through heavily orchestrated scenes employing tricks and manipulation. This is quite different from my process,” he explains. “The objects need to exist in a state of discovery for me to consider capturing an image.”

Read more: In conversation with artist ruby onyinyechi amanze

But even before the internet, artists were turning away from technical processes and towards cities to provide the necessary theatricality. Practitioners such as John Gutmann, Anthony Hernandez (whose work will be seen in the main exhibition at the 2019 Venice Biennale) and Helen Levitt embraced street photography, and, as Morse explains, their tactics resonate through today’s generation, with Trevor Hernandez making the point that the development of technology has further benefited photography by democratizing the camera via the smartphone.

By showcasing their observations digitally rather than through exhibits or print, today’s artists deviate from surrealism’s formal tenets, but add layers of curiosity provoked by the internet’s intervention in the act and idea of seeing. It also sees a generation returning to a different surrealist cornerstone: the elimination of logical thought or process in favor of instinct. This revitalized movement has taken hold particularly in LA, and while the city hasn’t bred as many street photographers as New York for example, its unique energy allows for “strange juxtapositions that only occur in LA,” remarks Morse. Trevor Hernandez capitalizes on precisely this: the inherent artistic potential of the city’s banal and desolate charm. “LA has a diverse group of artists scattered throughout the city. The isolation and independence created by decentralized living could be expressed in some of the images from my campaign,” he says. “I’m interested in surveying or decoding the landscape for a certain essence and the specific ingredients to that equation are constantly evolving.”

Instagram: @gangculture

The directness of snapshot to social media sidesteps artistic machinations to present
ultra-reality. However, the result is then skewed by, for example, Instagram’s reputation for showcasing manufactured realities. Cindy Sherman’s practice exemplifies this: she has adopted the social media platforms to investigate self-portraiture through the uncanny. Trevor Hernandez’s images, meanwhile, document unmodified moments, but the very act of selecting a scene and framing the image reconfigures the viewer’s perspective. Sitting where the real and unreal meet, the result is a deep dive into hyper-surrealism.

Contemporary surrealist photographers, by engaging with this dynamic, maximize the medium’s privileged capacity to explore the uncanny and transform reality not just through how the image is made, but how it’s shared. Surrealism’s revamp and shift towards urban landscape photography has injected new energy into image-making, and for those artists who deal with the digital world as well, such as Trevor Hernandez, audiences have immediate access to the surreal in real time.

Follow Trevor Hernandez on Instagram: @gangculture

This article originally appeared in the Deutsche Bank Wealth Management x LUX special supplement inside the Summer 19 Issue.

‘Space Odyssey’ (2019) by Etienne Rey

Space in the hands of today’s artists means not just making sculpture but also whole physical or digital environments that the spectator experiences. Clint McLean selects six explorers of these new worlds

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JULIE MEHRETU

Ethiopian-American artist Julie Mehretu’s abstract paintings compress space and time to reveal imaginary places birthed from unrecognizable but real locations. The artist layers her distinctive markings with architectural drawings, maps, drafts and plans to create the “in-between psychological spaces,” as she refers to them. The paintings are a storm of simultaneous perspectives rendered in pencil, ink and paint and are at times monumental in size.

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‘Hineni (E. 3:4)’ (2018) by Julie Mehretu

KLAUS PINTER

The largest installations of Austrian artist Klaus Pinter don’t just occupy space, they dominate it. The buoyant airships and ornaments are often translucent and, though enormous, have a lightness and playfulness to them. The two giant balls that constitute Rebonds, which was installed at the Paris Panthéon in 2010, turned the space into a Cubist dream by creating a warped and translucent simulacrum of the architecture it inhabited.

‘Rebonds’ (2010) by Klaus Pinter

ETIENNE REY

The installations by French artist Etienne Rey confuse our sense of space through light, movement and reflection. Works like the semi- reflective, semi-translucent wall Flou No. 1 (2017), and the light sculpture Space Odyssey (2013) created with Wilfried Wendling, are like portals to another dimension. Except that we never arrive at another place. Rather, the artworks distort and erase our environment, making depth and distance disappear and leaving us forever in an in-between place.

‘WDCH Dreams’ (2018) by Refik Anadol

Read more: Curator Zoe Whitley on the art of collaboration

REFIK ANADOL

Turkish artist Refik Anadol makes the digital space physical through immersive projections of light and sound that draw on data collection and artificial intelligence, among other things. In Archive Dreaming (2017), Anadol surrounds us with data from a digital archive that in turns leaves us hurtling through a vortex of information, floating in space, and inspecting a library of images. The installation is as futuristic as it is nostalgic.

‘Untitled (Pulp)’ (1999) by Rachel Whiteread

RACHEL WHITEREAD

British-born Rachel Whiteread’s sculptures make negative space positive by casting the spaces in, under and around things in rubber, resin, plaster or cement. The Turner Prize-winning artist has cast domestic items such as the space under chairs (echoing Bruce Nauman’s chair-space casts from the 1960s), as well as architectural spaces such as a room (Ghost, 1990) or an entire house (House, 1993). Her work shuffles between playful and haunting while evoking themes of absence and memory.

‘Me Somewhere Else’ (2018) by Chiharu Shiota

CHIHARU SHIOTA

The ‘thread drawings’ of Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota fill spaces in dense webs of yarn as they traverse universal themes of life, death, love, relationships and memory. They adorn and claim structures, and tornadoes of her signature red, black or white threads absorb objects such as boats, books, dresses and keys. Her installations turn spaces into dramatic environments as both backdrops and vehicles for sentimental narratives.

This article was originally publishing in the Deutsche Bank Wealth Management x LUX supplement inside the Summer 19 Issue.

ruby onyinyechi amanze’s ‘Without a Care in the Galaxy, we Danced on Galaxies (or Red Sand with that Different Kind of Sky) with Ghosts of your Fatherland Keeping Watch’ (2015). Deutsche Bank Collection

Nigerian-born, US-based ruby onyinyechi amanze, the official artist of 2019’s Deutsche Bank Wealth Management Lounge at Frieze New York, is exploring new realms of drawing, as she explains to Clint McLean

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The artist ruby onyinyechi amanze

Picture a landscape without earth, sky or horizon and then dance a motley crew of aliens across the naked expanse. Arrange things such as birds, motorcycles and fragments of architecture around the figures as though musical notes on a staff. If this can be done with a light enough touch, the resulting image may be something like the drawings of ruby onyinyechi amanze.

The 36-year-old Nigerian-born artist, whose output is primarily drawings and works on paper, has become best known for a body of work she refers to as ‘aliens, hybrids and ghosts’. These sometimes large-scale pencil drawings, enhanced with ink, acrylic and photo transfers, depict strange hybrid creatures, often part-human and part-creature, in unexplained narratives.

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Before moving to the US in the mid- 1990s, amanze (who prefers to have her name all in lowercase) spent her childhood in the UK, but she prefers to avoid geographical and national identifiers. “None of them feel quite right,” she tells me from her home in Philadelphia. “Too vague? Too simple? Missing the nuance?” This post- national thinking is central to the direction her work took in 2012 while she was living in Nigeria, thanks in part to a Fulbright Scholarship. That was when amanze developed the cast of characters that helped her explore how she felt alien in a place that was both familiar and foreign. “I was going between those two extremes and wanted to look at that through the lens of these other beings and not as a self-portrait,” she explains. Her first character, Ada, was an electric-yellow doppelganger; she was followed by Audre, a leopard-headed figure presenting as male. Others – Pigeon, Twin and Merman – appeared over the following months.

These characters have continued from that 2012–13 body of work into the dream worlds of amanze’s recent drawings, which she says are now more about space. On smooth, heavy cotton paper, the characters are enveloped by white expanses, yet this absence has a presence. Her alien characters help sculpt and define that space, but are now subordinate to it.

‘The Gap [and the beams of sun, special ordered on our behalf]’ (2017). Image courtesy of the artist and the Goodman Gallery

LUX: Do you still feel alien in these places?
ruby onyinyechi amanze: Yes, definitely, and that’s why I connect more with other people who move between worlds in a way that feels similar to me. I identify with those people and that energy and view those in- between worlds as their own country and space. So yes, I do feel like an alien in many places I find myself. I meet other aliens who identify in similar ways and there’s a shared connection there for people who have this sort of relationship to place.

Read more: Curator Zoe Whitley on the art of collaboration

LUX: Your work seems to have four ‘characters’: the aliens, space, paper and drawing.
ruby onyinyechi amanze: I think that’s accurate. If I was to put them into hierarchical order, then the figures would be the least important. They were once, but now they’re not and may drop out of future drawings altogether. There are some current smaller drawings that do not have these figures and in fact the chapter of drawings before this body of work were all abstract.

‘Don’t Stay’ (2018). Image courtesy of the artist and the Goodman Gallery

LUX: Will you be exploring this new approach to drawing in your work at Frieze?
ruby onyinyechi amanze: When I started this particular body of work, the development of the hybrid nature of some of the beings that inhabit the space was certainly much more central to what I was thinking about. But I think at this point my interest is much more in the space itself and in playing – that’s very important to me. There’s something magical in the drawing process and in the larger context of how one can move through space. Also, on the paper plane, to be able to move and push and pull and create entrances and windows and alleyways and all of these things that suggest the space, is the meat of the work and less an issue about a mix of cultures – although that stays as a founding root of it. I had a show in 2018 with Goodman Gallery in Cape Town entitled ‘there are even moonbeams we can unfold’. There were some new pieces that were shown there for the first time and a few pieces that came off the wall or interacted with the architecture. I’m interested now in works that are sculptural in some way, so that is a part of the work at the Deutsche Bank Wealth Management Lounge. I want the works in one way or another to have weight to them.

Read more: Sarah Morris’ architectural explorations at the White Cube, London

LUX: What was the catalyst for moving into sculptural paper?
ruby onyinyechi amanze: It’s the point in the work and my studio practice that feels like the most ‘alive’ part of the process right now – discovering ways that paper can hold physical weight and have a presence in the space it’s in and can physically engage with the viewer and/or with the architecture. That comes from what happens inside the drawings: moving through spaces and spaces colliding and planes and all of those things, and to allow the drawn world to become three-dimensional. The two-dimensional space of the paper has never emotionally or spiritually felt flat to me. I enter it in some weird way and am approaching it from that perspective.

‘I was never really there’ (2018). Image courtesy of the artist and the Goodman Gallery

‘Canopies, Lungs and Effervescence’ (2018). Image courtesy of the artist and the Goodman Gallery

LUX: Tell us about your love of paper?
ruby onyinyechi amanze: I find it to be very beautiful as a material. It’s so rich in its history and in its simplicity. To think about the process and history of paper as a whole, the history of this specific piece of paper – and I can now embed additional narratives and marks in it. Yet it came to me with so much embedded subtly into the fibers already. I appreciate subtlety and think it’s poetic. There’s a lot of raw potential in what you can do to further manipulate this material. It can take many forms and all of those things excite me.

LUX: You lie on top of your drawings when you are creating them and leave marks on them. Do these add to the artwork?
ruby onyinyechi amanze: Yes, always. Paper is already imperfect when it comes to me. It’s already scarred in some way. So additional scars are part of its story and part of its history. Paper is like skin. It holds the memory of these things whether they are visible or not.

A selection of new works by ruby onyinyechi amanze will be on display in the Deutsche Bank Wealth Management Lounge at Frieze New York on May 1–5, 2019, presented in collaboration with Deutsche Bank’s Art, Culture & Sports division.

This article first appeared in the Deutsche Bank Wealth Management x LUX supplement inside the Summer 19 Issue

‘Untitled’ (2012) by Cathy Wilkes at MoMA PS1, New York, 2017

Zoe Whitley

Traditionally, art exhibitions have been directed by curators, but now there is a move to hand the reins over to the artist. As the eighth edition of Frieze New York gets underway, Zoe Whitley, curator of the British Pavilion at the 2019 Venice Biennale, discusses how allowing artists the freedom to realize their vision can lead to a deeper, shared experience of the work

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Artists encourage us to see things around us anew, pushing us to reframe and re-examine contexts that are already well established. As a curator, working with and learning directly from artists has given me the greatest insights, which is why I think it is crucial to listen to artists when it comes to putting together a show.

‘Artist-led’ has become something of a buzzword lately, but it is easier said than put into practice. It is certainly not easy to put one’s ego aside and listen – really listen – to what an artist needs. Rather than asking an artist, “I have this idea, can you illustrate it?”, a curator should instead establish trust and, perhaps counterintuitively, ‘do’ less by allowing the work to unfold and by supporting the artist as they need it, particularly where new commissions are concerned. Of course, as in all projects, there are production and press deadlines to juggle and other logistical realities, but one has to also be sensitive to the fact that artists can’t necessarily (and shouldn’t have to) work to a Gantt chart. Ultimately, deadlines are imposed and as a curator one needs to focus on creating (within a framework) as much space as possible around the artist so they are able to think, respond and reflect. Only then can one come in and ask questions.

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This is particularly relevant in a context like the Venice Biennale, in which you are essentially inviting an artist to realize one of their most ambitious visions. In fact, this year’s Biennale marks a shift in how we have tackled the curation of the British Pavilion. For the first time, an open call by the British Council, which has been responsible for the British presentation at the Biennale since 1937, invited mid-career external curators to apply for the position, creating an opportunity for an international arts professional working in the UK. That, too, is a more collaborative, outward-looking approach. I am honored to have been selected and am the first African American to hold such a position attached to a national pavilion. (Given that firsts are built on other firsts, I credit Kinshasha Holman Conwill and Grace Stanislaus, who, in 1990, curated five artists from Africa at the Venice Biennale, under the auspices of the Studio Museum in Harlem.)

A collaborative approach is important in showing that there is not only one way to work or live or even to be. Collaboration can yield brilliant ideas and greater diversity of thought and creativity, no matter what the end format of those ideas is. This year’s British Pavilion and the Biennale are a reminder that things don’t have to be done the way they have always been done, and there is a sense of hitting ‘refresh’ every two years that feels very affirming to me right now.

The artist representing Britain, Turner Prize-nominated Cathy Wilkes, is testament to this. Working with her has been fascinating and an exercise in humility. Cathy and I have had a fruitful rapport, thinking through the subtleties in her work. From the get-go it has been important to me to take her lead, and I have said to her, “Even if the show is a huge success, if you are unhappy with it, then I will feel like we failed.”

I always say that Cathy’s work is art that whispers rather than shouts. She won the inaugural Maria Lassnig Prize for mid-career artists in 2017, and the resulting show, at MoMA PS1 in New York City, was not only incredibly beautiful but also very subtle. It featured minimal curatorial interventions. There were no texts obfuscating the works, instructing how the viewer must respond to them. It allowed for a particularly contemplative experience but also, honestly, a slightly disconcerting one without those usual didactic prompts. I’ll say it: contemporary art can sometimes be tricky to engage with if you don’t have any prior knowledge of the art or the artist. But not everything has to be easy or prescriptive. Cathy’s work comes from her singular vision, yet she doesn’t want to impose one preconceived experience upon the viewer, hence the constant attempts at paring back and stripping away (texts, titles, even light fittings) to make as much room for the viewer as possible. I find that hugely refreshing and honest. It’s also incredibly freeing, because we can all find our own way and together pose a series of questions, or come to her work with our own personal experiences.

Read more: Art collector Kelly Ying on supporting young artists

It is also significant that the UK artists at this year’s Bienniale (Charlotte Prodger for Scotland and Sean Edwards for Wales), like Cathy, have all contributed to dynamic and vibrant artistic communities outside of London, in Glasgow and Cardiff. It suggests we can move beyond what we think of as the default capital centers of cultural production and, perhaps, question the very notion of national representation as suggesting only one allegiance. Cathy herself was born in Northern Ireland and lives and works in Scotland. National boundaries don’t need to be fixed or prescribed. This matters to me now more than ever, and is something that the British Council has embraced.

Where is all this heading? Are the arts, like so many other sectors, moving more towards a mindful experience? I’m not one for trend-casting but I’d say there’s space for everything. What I really appreciate is that, in Venice at least, we have been given the chance to create a space for quiet and for seeing with an innocent eye and we can all discover something new in a shared space. We can all be non-initiates – together.

The 58th Venice Biennale runs from May 11 to November 24, 2019. For more information visit: labiennale.org/art

This article first appeared in the Deutsche Bank Wealth Management x LUX supplement inside the Summer 19 Issue.

Art021 is a contemporary art fair in Shanghai set up by art collector Kelly Ying and her husband

Co-founder of Shanghai’s contemporary art fair Art021, Kelly Ying is considered one of the most influential young art collectors in China. Here, we speak to Ying about art collecting, love at first sight and supporting young artists.

Kelly Ying

1. You used to work in fashion industry, what made you want to start collecting contemporary art and do you see a connection between the two worlds?

I think there are definitely connections between art and fashion, and we need to explore that more. I started to collect art many years ago because of my family. My mom and my husband [David Chau] have a strong influence on my collection and collecting decisions.

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2. What draws you to an artwork? Do you think your tastes tend towards a particular aesthetic?

I believe in “love at first sight”, therefore the initial emotional and aesthetical chemistry of an artwork is very important to me. As a woman myself, emotions play a significant part in my collecting decisions. However, I also try to balance emotions with intellectual analysis, looking at artists’ background, past exhibitions, exposures, etc. Recently I’m really attached to artists working with different media, multi-media and mix-media works.

3. Why did you decide to set up Art021?

My husband, Bao Yifeng and I all thought that there should be a high-quality contemporary art fair in Shanghai at the time. We felt the urge, and we got the courage, so we made ART021 happen.

Originally working in the fashion industry, Ying is now focusing entirely on art.

4. Which artists are exciting you at the moment?

Many artists excite me. I like young artists. I find Chinese artists like Li Qing and Zhao Yao very interesting. During my recent trips to LA, I discovered that there are lots of talented young artists based in LA who deserve more attention. I also like artists like Amalia Pica and Ryan Gander, who make very conceptual artworks.

5. What advice would you give to young collectors?

I think young collectors should just get out, look at art and visit lots of exhibitions and fairs. It’s also important for them to talk more often with the right person in the art world.

6. What gets you up in the morning?

A nice cup of coffee!

Follow Kelly Ying on Instagram: @kellyyingxoxo

Art021 runs from 7-10 November 19, for more information visit: art021.org

The spectacular architecture of the Hôtel Chais Monnet, designed by Didier Poignant

A new kind of luxury hotel in Cognac sets new standards of comfort, cuisine and architecture for those exploring the region that’s been in the shadow of nearby Bordeaux for too long, says James Richardson

Le 1838, the hotel’s jazz and cognac bar

A short drive from the city of Bordeaux, the newly opened Chais Monnet is the swankiest hotel in southwest France and the first of a new breed of destination – the super-luxury auberge. The hotel and spa (and conference centre) are situated in and around a very expensively converted former cognac-aging warehouse by the Charente river. Lavishly designed by architect Didier Poignant, the hotel’s spectacular exterior complements the welcoming contemporary chic of the interior.

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The 92 rooms (and 15 apartments) are decorated with a sophisticated rustic charm, the spa features a 24-metre indoor-outdoor pool, and the jazz bar, in its own converted building, is hugely atmospheric. The greatest revelation is in the restaurants, in the former cognac warehouse itself, headed by Sébastien Broda, who earned a Michelin star for Le Park 45 in Cannes. There is a real Soho House vibe (not surprisingly, since owner Javad Marandi also owns the legendary Soho Farmhouse in Oxfordshire in the UK), with the cuisine both light and delicious – the memory of a super-umami fish pot au feu at Saturday brunch remains with us still.

Read more: The problematic stereotypes cast by the male nude in art

The hotel’s decor is casual contemporary luxe

The guest rooms have been carefully incorporated into the original structure of the buildings

The indoor/outdoor pool in the spa

While it’s tempting not to leave the hotel, the experiences on offer in the area are compelling, from cycle tours along the river to driving to picnics in the local vineyards in a vintage car supplied by the hotel. Then there’s the serious business of tastings at the celebrated local cognac houses, such as Martell, Rémy Martin and Courvoisier, or sampling the wines of the great Bordeaux châteaux not far to the south.

For more information and to book your stay visit: chaismonnethotel.com

This article was first published in the Winter 19 Issue.

The Cognac region offers bucolic summertime relaxation and historical sites aplenty

Chef Sébastien Broda in the kitchens, and one of his dishes that use locally sourced produce and that are served in the hotel’s Les Foudres and La Distillerie restaurants

The scene of the 2018 Gaggenau Sommelier Awards ceremony gala dinner, held at the Red Brick Art Museum in Beijing

More than sheer knowledge of wine, it takes dexterity, impeccable service and the ability to inspire the diner to be a top sommelier, as the finalists of the 2018 Gaggenau Sommelier Awards in Beijing discover. Sarah Abbott, a judge at the final, describes the peaks of that fine wine world

We are watching Kei Wen Lu about to extinguish a candle. He pinches – does not blow – the flame out. I breathe a secret sigh of relief, and discreetly tick my scoresheet. Beside me, fellow judges Annemarie Foidl, Yang Lu MS and Sven Schnee mark their scorecards.

Kai Wen, one of the 2018 finalists

Such is the assessment of elite sommellerie. Kai Wen won the Greater China heats of the Gaggenau Sommelier Awards, and he is now performing the “decantation task” in the grand final, in Beijing. He faces a room of Chinese and international press, and the relentless gaze of we four judges.

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For this task, there are 40 elements on which our young finalists are judged. Decanting seems straightforward, perhaps: open a bottle, pour it into a decanter, leaving any sediment behind, and serve a glass to each of your four guests. It is the attention to tiny details that transforms the everyday to the excellent, and the exigent to the sublime.

This task has been created by judge Yang Lu, Master Sommelier and Director of Wine for the Shangri-La Group. Yang has passed the toughest sommelier exam in the world and knows what it takes. Mentor and hardened veteran of elite sommellerie, he challenges these young recruits with his relentless eye for excellence.

From left to right: David Dellagio, Mikaël Grou and Emma Ziemann, three of the finalists, in front of Gaggenau’s wine storage cabinets

The guéridon must be wheeled smoothly to the right of the host. The bottle must be eased from the shelf and placed gently into the wine basket. You must remove the capsule foil cleanly, and the cork smoothly, without disturbing the bottle in its cradling basket. Ah, but have you remembered to light the candle before you’ve uncorked the bottle? And to wipe the bottle lip with a clean napkin before extracting the cork? And have you assembled those napkins on the guéridon before you bring it over? Kai Wen’s hand is steady as he decants the wine over the lit candle. The room is eerily silent, a camera man is panning up close, and Kai’s every move is magnified for audience and judges on TV screens.

Yang has set traps. He has planted dirty glasses. And he has set out two different vintages of the requested wine. One ‘guest’ decides that she doesn’t fancy the red wine. Can she have a glass of sparkling wine instead? Contestants will lose six marks if they pour the sparkling before serving the other guests their decanted red. More points are ripe for deduction for forgetting the side plate or to offer to remove the cork, or for unequal pours. And for puffing out that candle.

Kai Wen is friendly, focussed and diligent. He avoids most of the traps and completes the decantation within the scarce nine minutes.

Read more: How politics trumps science in the GMO debate

Despite the rigour and specificity of the marking scheme, the personal style of each contestant comes through. Emma Ziemann is the Swedish finalist. Confident and authoritative, she impresses by greeting the judges as if in the theatre of a busy service. She holds our eye, and sails through the decantation, coping well with a dastardly technical question from Yang – designed to put the contestants off mid-pour – about the Saint-Émilion classification.

The pressures of time and occasion are merciless, and most evident during the blind- tasting challenge, in which contestants must taste, describe and identify seven wines and drinks. All identify the Daiginjo Sake without problem, but the old stalwart of French crème de cassis liqueur stumps several. These non-wine beverages are served in opaque black glasses, masking any colourful clues.

Mikaël Grou, the eventual winner of the 2018 Gaggenau Sommelier Award

South African finalist Joakim Blackadder shows relaxed charm and cool humour. Mikaël Grou, the French finalist, excels. Engaging and poised, he tastes, describes and correctly identifies five of the seven wines and beverages within the allotted twelve minutes. Mikaël impresses for the range and precision of his technical vocabulary, and for his enticing, consumer-friendly descriptions.

All instructions from the judges are spoken and may be repeated only once. It is easy to miss a critical detail. Young, enthusiastic Zareh Mesrobyan is the British finalist. Originally from Bulgaria, he works for Andrew Fairlie’s renowned eponymous restaurant in Scotland. Annemarie Foidl, head of the Austrian Sommelier Association and our chair of judges, gives the instructions for the menu pairing task: Zareh has thirty seconds to read the menu, and four minutes to recommend one accompaniment for each course. “Please include one non-alcoholic beverage and one non-wine beverage.” Zareh seems to love the task. He does triple the work, giving not one but three creative and detailed pairings for each course. Sadly, he cannot gain triple marks.

Read more: Artist Rachel Whiteread on the importance of boredom

The structure of sommelier competitions is well-established around the world, and ours includes many of these classic elements. But Gaggenau is looking for that extra spark, so Annemarie has devised a new task called Vario Challenge, after Gaggenau’s new wine storage units. Built into the stage wall are several wine storage units, calibrated to different temperatures. Each contestant must work their way through a delivery of twelve wines, describe each wine to the judges as if to a customer, and put the wine in the correct cabinet. Swiss finalist, Davide Dellago, excels, wheeling between judges and Vario with grace, and summing up the style and context of each wine with wit and confidence.

The world of sommellerie can seem elitist and arcane. The cliché of the stuffy sommelier
persists, rooted in an increasingly faded world of starched cloths and manners, and of
knowledge used as power, not as gift. As Yang Lu says to me later, it’s critical that sommeliers retain their love for and connection with customers. They must work the floor. Taking part in competitions is a means to an end, not a job in itself.

And what is that end? After a gruelling day of competing, our six finalists worked the floor at a gala dinner. Here is the theatre where sommellerie performs. And this was quite a production. The Red Brick Art Museum, a young, bold architectural venue in Beijing’s art district, was a hip, stylish space. Banqueting tables were dressed in silver and late-season flowers and berries, evoking autumnal birch and harvest bounty. It was time for our young sommeliers to serve not clipboard-wielding judges, but honoured guests.

Chef André Chiang plating up for the gala dinner

Our finalists presented six wines with six courses, to each table. The menu was created by André Chiang, the Taiwanese-born, Japanese-raised and French-trained chef, who won two Michelin stars for his Singapore restaurant, Restaurant André. Thoughtful and visionary, Chiang is a revered superstar of contemporary Asian culinary culture. So, the pressure was on.

South African finalist Joakim Blackadder

The finalists had been given just two hours on the previous day to taste the wine with the judges and acquire the facts they needed to tell their wine stories with conviction and colour. All the wines were Chinese. Just five years ago, matching exclusively Chinese wines to food of this nuance, precision and individuality would have been a tall order. Big, gruff, blundering Cabs were the rule. But the ambition and accomplishment of Chinese winemaking today has soared, and these were excellent matches. So it was that our contestants were able to tell a new story of Chinese wine to guests. Of six different styles, of six different grapes, and from six different regions.

Grace Vineyard Angelina Brut Reserve 2009, an intricate and sabre-fresh, champagne- method sparkling, was served with the pure, enticing first course of braised abalone with green chilli pesto and crispy mushroom floss.

They presented Kanaan Winery’s mineral, elegantly aromatic 2017 Riesling with the softly textured, seductive second course of asparagus, caviar broken egg and non-alcoholic Seedlip Garden 108 herbal spirit.

Read more: PalaisPopulaire & Berlin’s Cultural Revolution

Contemporary Chinese wine is inspired by European traditions, but the deeply traditional aged 2008 Maison Pagoda Rice Wine thrilled our sommeliers with its tangy, nutty intensity. Both strange and familiar, it recalled old Madeira or Oloroso, but with a deeper, salty well. It was superb with the dark marine crab capellini, laksa broth and curry-dust sea urchin.

There is one dish that Chef André never removes from his restaurant menu (I suspect, having tasted it, for fear of riots). European culinary tradition and Asian technique come together in this dish of foie gras jelly, black truffle coulis and chives. Part jelly, part mousse, this intelligently decadent dish was paired with the delicately sweet, honeyed 2014 Late Harvest Petit Manseng from Domaine Franco-Chinois.

The first and only red of the evening was perfumed and confidently understated. 2015 Tiansai Vineyards Skyline of Gobi (yes, as in the Gobi Desert). This scented, floral and plush syrah/viognier was a surprisingly successful pairing with chargrilled Wagyu beef.

You know that a wine culture is developed when signs of an iconoclastic counter-culture peek through. Our final wine of the night was, in essence if not in name, a natural wine. Bottled in one-litre flip-top bottles and made from the too often dismissed hybrid grape vidal, the 2017 Mysterious Bridge Icewine was as wild and fresh as the mixed-berry jelly dessert with which it was served.

Our sommeliers told these stories. They blossomed in service, freed from the heat of their earlier competition but also strengthened by it. They delighted our guests with their own delight in these new discoveries. This is the calling of sommellerie – to notice, describe and share the beauties of wine with new ideas of what is beautiful.

In the end, Mikaël Grou was victorious. But, as fellow judge and head of Brand Gaggenau, Sven Schnee said, each of those young sommeliers were winners. They, and we, were touched by this experience of Chinese history, culinary culture and pure vinous potential.

Discover more: gaggenau.com

This article was first published in the Winter 19 Issue

Sarah Morris installation shot, ‘Machines do not make us into Machines’, White Cube Bermondsey © Sarah Morris. Photo © White Cube (Ollie Hammick)

Standing in front of one of Sarah Morris‘ expansive architectural grids is a challenging, giddying experience. Confronted with a maze of colour and geometric shapes, you’re struck with a sense of panic: What are you looking at? How do you see it all at once, or make sense of it as a whole? This anxiety, or perhaps desire, is at the core of the American artist’s work as she plays with the viewer’s sense of visual recognition. Incorporating a wide range of references from the structure of urban transport systems to the iconography of maps, GPS technology, as well as the movement of people within urban environments, Morris’ work is best understood as an expanding and evolving network of visual, social and political connections.

Follow LUX on Instagram: the.official.lux.magazine

Her exhibition at the White Cube (and her first in the UK in six years), Machines do not make us into Machines presents a new series of ‘Sound Graph’ paintings, which use the artist’s sound files as a starting point for their composition. Recorded fragments of conversations are abstracted into hard-edged geometric shapes that appear in vibrant, fluctuating patterns that seem to move before the gaze.

Sarah Morris, ‘The Building looks like a ship’ [Sound Graph], 2019 © Sarah Morris. Photo © Tom Powel Imaging. Courtesy White Cube

Sarah Morris ‘Abu Dhabi’ [still] 2017. HD Digital. Duration: 67 minutes, 54 seconds © Sarah Morris. Courtesy White Cube

‘Machines do not make us into Machines’ runs until 30 June 2019 at White Cube, Bermondsey, London. For more information visit: whitecube.com

Follow Sarah Morris on Instagram: instagram.com/sarahmorris

Model and entrepreneur Grace Cheng. Instagram: @gracepcheng

LUX contributing editor and model at Models 1, Charlie Newman continues her online exclusive series, interviewing her peers about their creative pursuits, passions and politics

Charlie Newman

THIS MONTH: 24-year-old Taiwanese/Chinese model Grace Cheng was born and raised in the suburbs of Los Angeles. She has appeared in numerous fashion campaigns and walked for the likes of Bottega Venetta, Moschino and Marc Jacobs. A year ago, she launched oatmeal company Mylk Labs by reinvesting her modelling earnings. She chats to Charlie about healthy eating, handling success and future ambitions.

Charlie Newman: Were you passionate about fashion and food as a child?
Grace Cheng: Not at all! I was a tomboy and never wanted to be a model, even though I stuck out as a lanky, tall girl. The most fashion I experienced was shopping every weekend at the mall! Never did I cook either – this was something I grew into when I was around 19.

Charlie Newman: So how and when did you get into modelling?
Grace Cheng: I was scouted at 17 and started modelling at 18. I never wanted to pursue it despite the many relatives and friends who told me I should, being the lanky, tall girl that I was and am! I had no idea what to expect and it kind of just fell into my lap but I’m glad it did because I’ve grown so much as a person since then.

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Charlie Newman: And then your career rocketed very quickly! Tell us about your experience of rising to success.
Grace Cheng: There’s no question I find it hard: all of the travelling, long e-commerce days and tons of castings that never come into fruition. Travelling is something I struggle with especially since I’m someone who loves being organised and prefer a set routine. My mindset has always been “nothing in life is easy” so I knew I had to put in the work. I have friends who send me screenshots of ads or campaigns that I’m featured in, it’s always so fun to be spotted and that makes it all worthwhile.

Charlie Newman: Whilst modelling full-time you were also studying at USC – how did you balance those two commitments?
Grace Cheng: Yes! I studied business and graduated in 2016. It was really hard to balance if I’m being honest. If a young girl were to tell me they want to skip college for modelling, I’d advise against it even though it’s tough. I was commuting from home and hour and thirty minutes drive one way, and took classes twice a week. They were 10 hour days so I could bang out all my classes in one go and model for the other three days of the week. I’d be studying and doing homework during my lunch and snack breaks during my jobs too! The hardest week I had looked like this: 10 hours of school on Tuesday and 3 midterms, then go to LAX airport to get on a red eye fly out to Philadelphia, arrive 6am on Wednesday to shoot 10 hours, then head back to the airport to fly home, land at 1am, wake up at 5 am for another 10 hour day of school!

Instagram: @gracepcheng

Charlie Newman: You launched your company Mylk labs just over a year ago now. How was the idea born?
Grace Cheng: I was traveling so much for modelling and I just wanted my homemade, daily oatmeal. With my background in business, I knew I always wanted to start my own company but I just never knew what it was going to be. After my first fashion month in NY, London and Paris, I came back and knew oatmeal is what I wanted to create because it was all I could think about the entire time I was gone!

Instagram: @gracepcheng

Charlie Newman: As a woman, how have you found the experience of setting up your own business and what advice would you give to others wanting to do the same?
Grace Cheng: It’s been so exciting, but a lot of work. It took one full year of planning, sourcing and putting everything together before execution. My advice is: make sure you’re passionate about what you do, keep pushing and don’t be afraid to explore outside the box.

Read more: Designer Piet Boon on avoiding trends

Charlie Newman: Have you found the fashion world to be supportive of your newfound project?
Grace Cheng: Yes, my bookers and everyone is very understanding and supportive of my company. I’ve still yet to bridge the two together, but rest assured, it’s currently in the works. I want to be able to serve wholesome, convenient food to those in the fashion industry. This includes educating young models on eating well and being good to their own bodies.

Charlie Newman: With so much conflicting advice surrounding healthy living, it’s very easy as a
consumer to get lost within it all. What advice would you give to anyone trying to change their eating habits?
Grace Cheng: Eat based on ingredients versus calories. I always read the label to see what’s in my
food before buying and eating it, unless it’s at a restaurant of course. Always focus on wholesome
and real food as that will always be best in the long run, rather than restricting yourself on calories or low fat foods and diets.

Charlie Newman: Your products are non GMO, wholegrain, vegan and free from gluten, artificial additives and refined sugar. Why do you think it has taken the fast food industry so long to catch up with health conscious eating?
Grace Cheng: Well, to be honest, there are so many good options now so I can’t say that the fast food industry hasn’t caught up exactly, but it might have taken even longer because our world moves on “trends”. It’s weird to say it like that but people will only start to acknowledge and try something once everyone else is doing it.

Charlie Newman: Is there a health food brand you particularly admire?
Grace Cheng: Sweetgreen here in the US! They are a chain of quick service salad shops and it tastes amazing, they’re always my go to when travelling. Sweetgreen inspires me because their ability to make healthy food accessible, affordable and most importantly, delicious!

Charlie Newman: Where would you like to see your business in 5 years time?
Grace Cheng: I would absolutely love to create new product lines! I hope to become more than an “oatmeal company”. My goal is to create a company that people can recognise and trust in their daily lives, to create a culture and community of people who show themselves love through mindful living and eating. Being mindful is similar to being aware and considerate. Whether that be overall in life or day to day habits like eating a meal or staying active for example.

Charlie Newman: Lastly, who’s your role model of the month?
Grace Cheng: Coco Rocha. She’s a model turned business woman. She has her own book of poses and started a modelling camp to teach aspiring models how to move comfortably in their own skin.

Follow Grace Cheng on Instagram: @gracepcheng

Discover Mylk Labs: mylklabs.com

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!

Follow LUX on Instagram: the.official.lux.magazine

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