Scharf was born in Los Angeles in 1958 but moved to New York as a young man to launch his career in the city’s then-gritty East Village, along with contemporaries and fellow pop-art innovators like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. A huge fan of undisputed pop art king Andy Warhol, Scharf worked in multiple mediums — sculpture, fashion, video and even performance art - but he is best known for his otherworldly fantasies of cartoons full of emotion and color, utilizing extremes of Past and Future, macro and micro.
Movado, best known for their museum watch with its iconic one-dot dial, has long been a leader in artistic style in the watch world. Their first artist collaboration, with Andy Warhol himself, was called the Times Five and debuted in 1988. In keeping with Warhol’s pop sensibility and penchant for the use of repeating images, the watch had not just one dial but five identical dials linked together. Since then, 11 more artists have paired their sensibility with the Movado brand to create timepieces that are also wearable art.
These artists include Cuban-American artist Carmen Herrera, whose 2021 interpretation featured richly toned geometric shapes, fashion house Proenza Schouler, with its 2005 neutral-toned take on the Museum Watch, and Swiss artist Max Bill, who way back in 1993 crafted a rainbow-hued dial inside an octagonal silver case.
With the launch of this new collection, Scharf becomes the only artist to do two Movado collections. Scharf’s 2009 collection with Movado featured smiling hearts, a humanized tree and the planet Saturn, looking uncannily welcoming and eminently habitable inside its stainless steel frame. Everything Scharf does is instantly recognizable as his work, the vibrance, the mix of tones, the innovative shapes, and the six watches in the collection, though very different, also carry his unmistakable fun, zany, optimistic vibe.
"Time is a mind-blowing concept that I have been dealing with in my work. I use the past, the present and the combination thereof, including all time, no time, every time, and chaos, equaling infinite creative possibilities.”
This collection takes the Scharf universe in a more madcap direction. The stainless steel frame is gone, we are now in the realm of pure, highly saturated color.
The Kozlingo watch has a black-printed minute track, and printed green stick indices. Scharf’s characters are printed onto an Aventurine dial, and its matching printed strap is made of silicone.
On the Blobzmos, Scharf’s art is also on the dial. The strap, black leather with contrasting stitching in blue, has keepers edged with painted orange detailing. Its tip is painted with two “Blobzmos,” one orange, one green.
The watches are 42mm, with a 32.5 mm opening, Movado’s signature round marker at the 12 o'clock position, and Swiss Super Luminova on the second marker and hands. The movement is the Ronda 502, a quartz movement. Both casebacks have Scharf’s signature, along with the Movado written in capital letters. Each had a snap caseback, for 3 ATM water resistance.
The new Scharf x Movado partnership joins an over 100-year long tradition of distinct and recognizable timepieces. The Pop Surrealist imagery and street culture spontaneity is anchored by the timelessness of a storied Swiss-made brand.
© KENNY SCHARF. LICENSED BY ARTESTAR, NEW YORK
