Karim Rashid,Kenny Scharf & Pharrell: Art Meets Design | ARTST TLK™ Ep. 10 Full | Reserve Channel

design is democratic art and everybody seems to be getting more creative you don't have to be this person who just makes a painting you can be filmmaker you can be a scene maker singular and our differences but pleura with our potentials everything for me was going to be somehow you know futuristic I am going to stay with the vision that inspired me as a kid I want to turn that experience of the everyday into a magical if you really thought let go of the notions of nostalgia what would our world be like right now kerim Rashid is a renowned industrial designer responsible for over 3000 designs from hotels to watches soap dispensers and subway stations his award-winning designs include products for Alessi vodka Cole and Melissa along with fellow artist Keith Haring and jean-michel Basquiat Kenny Scharf was a main fixture of the East Village scene of the 80s a self called pop Surrealists his iconic imagery takes from the world of pop culture and animation he knows how to blur the lines guys thank you for being here and let's just jump right into it carpet Avenger Kenny if you hadn't watched cartoons as a kid would you still be an artist oh yeah your art is shaped a lot by the time you're in and the things you're exposed to but I kind of feel like you're born an artist I guess I was the first TV child generation so Yubaraj with all these images and I made up this term called pop surrealism which is kind of a used term now but basically I consider myself surrealist but there's so much pop imagery that when I I'm painting or whatever I'm creating a lot of these images are coming from inside because at such a young age being barraged one of the things adult artists do is keep that vision intact they don't lose it I am going to stay with the vision that inspired me as a kid and so Karen your father was a painter and a set designer was that your inspiration for a study in design yeah probably you know because when we were children actually we spent our weekend's on television sets and what's really nice is running around us kind of seamless rooms mm-hmm and go into costume department and liquid and try on all the costumes and watch my father you know make models of different television shows and film so there's no question about it we were brought up in a my brother and I and actually with so many pens and pencils and sketchbooks and books on you know designers and artists and fashion designers and all this around the house so so I I never even really questioned it and so when I think back in the 60s and I was a kid in the 60s going to Expo 67 and all this stuff and that period was fantastic because it was this kind of utopian vision of this idea that we're all going to by this point 2013 we're all going to be living on another planet you know and it was so much kind of a collective thinking about the future and a positivism about the future what is the first object or building that inspired you I would have to say it's 1967 I was seven and it was Expo Montreal and it was a pavilion by Buckminster Fuller called a geodesic dome and that was the American pavilion and in it was a was all this fantastic technology and the first I think product I did which I actually that I saw that I was interested in designing product was a vacuum cleaner that could run and vacuum by itself Roomba yeah which is this is my favorite this is my okay so this is 67 imagine look at that dome and just go wow this is amazing you know and it also I think that say you know what we can do anything in this world we want if we have imagination you can like make it happen that was the thought at that moment was I can do something and make this kind of futurism that I would love to live in Kenny in your formative years do you think that art school taught you something that you would not have learned on your own I think the most that I learned from art school was the kids that I connected with at art school I was kind of hungry for learning actually how do you do this and how do you do that and it was kind of lacking so the thing that I think I got out of school the most was who I met how did you become roommates with Keith Haring well Keith and I were friends from SVA and I was living in some crazy loft near Bryant Park and the roommate I had freaked out and decided to kick me out because I guess my personality was too much I was making too much art or something I don't remember exactly but they tried to get me kicked out and I I've came home one day and I said someone's leaving here but it's not me and then he left and I had this loft like two stories where we were wait wait wait you said to him someone's leaving today yeah and it's not me exactly no way yeah why not and Keith was living in this weird like rooming house he had shared a room with like five old men and had a bathroom in the hall and I was like God on the phone Keith get over here I got a huge place so there he was and it was about a week or two after he moved into in the place that he started doing his subway drawings Wow so it kind of took off really big from wow you guys have work elaborate you ever do any work together wait funny that we the only collaboration we ever did was in the street but nothing very formal like we're gonna do this together I just kind of happened yeah how do you see his legacy well you know he was a real good friend of mine and I even though we were the same age I always kind of looked to him he really had it together he so focused and he I just felt like like every move that I made I had to like ask him like what do you think I should do and he was like he was a lot older than me in certain ways and um I was with him you know when he was on his deathbed and I remember he was very very agitated and I kind of held him I don't even think he had his eyes open and I said you you can just relax and you know if you everything you've done is just gonna keep going you're you're you're you're just gonna continue well and I felt his whole body everything just relax and I meant it obviously and um that's kind of what happened I mean he's just growing and growing and he he started something really big what about war Oh like Andy what role did he play in your life what role did you play in his life he played a big role in my life I mean he was the reason why I moved to New York I knew that the factory and that whole 60s vibe was over this was the late 70s and basically um when I met my group of friends we emulated uh Warhol in a big way from yeah like a social life viewpoint or or you mean the actual work or you mean only above the major thing besides I mean I loved looking at the things that he made they still have so much power and they're so fresh looking but I think he opened the door of what it meant to be an artist because before him let's say Dulli and and Duchamp also did the same thing but Warhol really took it to a place that I connected to and I was like what is it what is your role as an artist you don't have to be this person who just makes a painting and then shows your painting you can be this you can be filmmaker you can be a scene maker you can you it's it's a much bigger picture so that's really what got me really excited what is the pluralist well prosthetic is is just to create a person who's moving in different disciplines so you know I I if I was a industrial designer I would be more or less doing product design you know I wouldn't be doing furniture I do furniture in the lighting or I wouldn't be doing interior architecture fashion whatever I feel like and I want to do my try but I'm good at it or no I kind of like attempted so they'll strive to be singular and our differences but pleura with our potentials yeah for our contributions and I like that beautiful but I think I think that also interestingly enough times change too because when I got into the sign everything was so specialized you know when I was going to university for example I didn't even know InDesign as a profession really existed I thought I thought I had to study architecture and it was he's like limited like Windows now all of a sudden as you and you and I and we cross boundaries and we end up doing things for different companies and different types of projects and all sort of stuff it's completely open for everybody to have this kind of notion of pluralism I think when I was young the people I looked up to that were close which is funny that you mentioned all Andy Warhol things anywhere always but one of my I want to emulate my life around a little bit like what he did but more of a Warhol an idea of a factory of design rather than you know an art but this idea that I love the idea they was doing film and printmaking and all the stuff all up all the boundaries and that he's trying to make the art accessible which I love to know all that sort of stuff it was look Corbusier you know as the architect I mean if I was guy was a great painter he designed clothes I think that one probably I looked up to the most was my father because he was a painter and a set designer but he would do things like you know he loved making clothes my mom so he would like pull out the sewing machine on a Sunday morning he'd sketch dresses and that he would like get the fabric cut it and sew it and then at night my parents would go out and she's wearing the dress that's really cool anyway yeah when you're when you're eight nine years old you look up like the wow that's fantastic and a pretty romantic collection it's romantic dates says a lot for like the mind and potential yeah Kenny is there any irony in your stated obsession with the dangers of consumerism because it made you a lot of money well yeah I mean I I have you know and by the way I'm not attacking you I know no don't work I mean I I'm kind of a hypocrite like for instance I see what mass crazy consumerism has done to our world and is continuing to she yet I'm a part of it sure I fly in planes I Drive cars I consume yeah I'm not out of this society I'm part of the society so I have this you know intense love for big American cars uh you know with the fins and all that fifty stuff yet that is kind of what led to global warming here we are so it's a love/hate thing basically what I'm trying to tell people is like I'm not perfect right it is that we need to be conscious should so I think your reporter being conscious is like a very big step I Drive a car and I just said I go in a plane well every time I do I'm thinking I'm using gas right um where is this gas come from what happens to I think about that stuff all the time sure but I still do it sure I do have this kind of dichotomy something that I I realize is causing our downfall but at the same time I love that you know consumerism when you take a product and you make it so enticing even though you don't like if the ultimate thing is like almost like an art piece it's like you don't need this thing but you make it so great and people have want it so I think that's part of what what I'm guilty of well Karen you you've estimated that we encountered 523 distracted no no girl he's fine you've estimated that we encounter 520 design objects designed objects each day yeah objects just told you thank you yeah cuz I know the sign is me yeah just take me touch yeah things we touch um but what does that entail hmm the second you wake up you may touch your eyeglasses radio remote control door knob faucets toilet and it just goes on and on so we're interacting with all these physical things daily what does that mean yeah yeah to you what does that mean to humanity you feel like we're getting to a place where like we're using what that number can decrease yeah right this is how I critique the world in a way a lot of times is design has differ cated itself a little bit from real performance and what I mean by that is like its style gets in the way a lot you know so for example I'm designing I don't know faucets and bathtub and sink you know and if you go to a trade show when you see the stuff up right in Italians and the Germans oh those are the lot of companies I work with beautiful things I mean things have in the last 10 years have changed drastically it's amazing actually what's happened with the physical like all of us and everything is getting very contemporary and really different at the same time beautiful but you know I don't like questionable like they're just caught up with a certain trend or certain style and forgetting about this kind of notion of use you know so I like I look at a faucet it's like a perfect stainless steel slab right you know we can all look at that a picture and go ah that's nice thing and then you gotta like you thing you're shaping beside it and this is like dangerous corners and all this result so my critique of this idea of physical remove navigating all over the movie to the physical world is to try to make a softer and more comfortable and more engaging the world and with that said obviously more poetic too and all that it's not just about performance it's very good it has to be emotional if you think about you know 2013 mm-hmm if you really thought let go of the notions of nostalgia and all these strange ideas what would our world be like right now but I guess I'm talking about just objects as a naked woman who just served us water that was I I didn't see that okay I think but the question is the time I just talk about when talking about the objects right just to take a really quick story I was working with Boeing many many years ago we were even gonna do airline seats chairs and I I'm sick my office for eight hours and I get out of my chair and I'm in in Aaron chair you know by Herman Miller when it just came out that Jerry I get up every day out of my office and I never think about being uncomfortable then I'm in an airplane minute when I'm in an economy it's like within 20 minutes everything starts to hurt there's no lumber supports really weird it's very hard bottom you think yourself well what's going on here well that Airlines chair is an old archetype and even though we suppose if you're making improvements on it we've just keep repeating the same thing so you and I when we look at go oh that's an airline seat well why not take the Aeron chair and stick it in the airplane all right but that's not the way the world works for some way the world works is full of these old all old archetypes that we just keep feeding over eventually they die some of them of course but we're not afraid of new technology this is what I've been thinking about a lot lately you know 375,000 apps for iTunes like it's just crazy number of apps we heard so much I found some what the hell did they all do right so there's a market for that I guess people are buying them I don't know what's going on so we're not afraid of now all the sudden attack ever since the iPod 2000 came out you could put that you know whatever gigs 40 years in your pocket the world changed it's amazing it's like we just like technology ah you know we are trying if it gives us a better experience we keep it yeah but physical world is kind of like like I look at this table like look how far apart we are and then talk about human addition is like did you know when I talk to be what want to be like that close right it's like this stuff is not designed for the time when they've been anymore we're all off it's clearly to get rid of it it's completely stay away you know and it's a massive piece of material so huge chunk of wood and I don't think about that a lot now when I design I think about you know that we used to think that luxury was you know like a marble table like heavy thing that's still the case in CONUS yeah sure sure and this idea what was luxury it was precious stones and diamonds and you know heavy gold heavy means those alloys in there yeah this table probably should be something super lightweight and really elegant and really comfortable with he doesn't like this table actually since I walked in I'm gonna go back to you Kenny for a second like with all of your work being in museums and galleries why are you so obsessed with like public art well I think it's part of who I am I really have this thing against elitism I really believe that the opportunity for ideas inspiration should be for everyone and not only for the sacred few people who have been able to go to the University and this and this and that that if you can touch and inspire people that normally wouldn't have that opportunity well I'm very excited about that there's so much a boring miss in the world that I think part of my drive is to make it less boring how do you feel about like the public and what's your like what's your connection to the public you know I would say design is democratic art right you know which means everybody gets to if you do something that's really inspiring and you know pleasurable and interesting everybody at least most majority not everybody majority can engage it youth in all its with stuff yeah I almost feel like I believe in a copyright free world like a lot of my work is being copied and I never have an issue with it whatsoever right and I don't mind of course the companies I designed for you know of course they're different because there's probably some you know money to be lost here but I have a lot of time it's not already flattered but I just feel like it's world we live in now and everybody seems to be getting more creative which is kind of the world I want anyway you know I love that idea that everybody can be expressive and all that and people can think differently I envy you it in some ways because I've always been very excited and driven about design and when you were talking about when you pick up the phone and everything you do in your daily life has all these actions with objects yeah so that hit me because I started this thing back in late 70s early 80s called customization where I was I thought that everything out there design wise was really really boring TVs phones blenders so I was like okay I'm going to go and personally change the surface of this object so when I pick up the phone and dial my everyday boring thing that we do I want to turn that experience and transform the experience of the everyday into let's say the magical mmm so I think that something that the design has the power to do for instance like I see designs from the 50s early 60s that's what I'm so turned on by they have a fantasy in them you know you look at the thing and you well somebody had some other idea besides a function that it was fantasy we're going to outer space here and so you're thinking about outer space when you're driving your you know car with the fins or you're a rocket it's all about the elevation of the mundane right so right I think I see what you're doing and actually making it happen in a larger way is very exciting what do you consider yeah piece of work and why it's a tough question and it's a question that one doesn't want to admit to because I'm always thinking about my future work or the things I'm doing now I guess if there's something that represents what I stand for to a point I would have to say maybe I did a chair called the Oh chair for Umbra which is actually you know still produced in Buffalo I did that 97 was successful about it what I've learned about why it's successful is you can buy it it you know mass shops contain your stores people like that for like thirty nine dollars and it was part of that you know notion of trying to do something that's super designed really comfortable it's 100% sustainable I did everything right because you joined you a project and just genuine maybe percent of it got right in at age 75 and the chair I think was well holistically successful in that regard so it stands for me too because it's democratic and it's um it's contemporary and it's interesting and it's fun and it's uh and it she's quite human you know it's like a nice object I have to say the oh gee I guess hey I don't want to say anything but I have to say something son yeah yeah over to you Kenny well that question is I kind of go along with him it's like well like me too what are you so I'll have to say I'm always most excited about what either I'm working on at the moment or what I just finished so I just finished a few days ago a big mural in LA Wow and I'm really excited about it and I feel like I'm off you know as an artist and designer Widow artists you're always your last thing you're you're always trying to top yourself Yeah right yeah so my answer would be that mural I want to thank you both Karen ooh and then Kenny this was this was cool man sometimes it was like awesome to just sort of sit back and watch you guys like trade ideas where things might be slightly differ rent but till I be open to the other person's perspective because that is what you share a lot of similar 100% yeah yeah today was a treat man thank you so much see this I kid seriously I'm walking away with a PhD right now thank you thank you yeah I was trained to be able to create an illusion I would draw bases of flowers from the time that I was a child looking at those paintings you would probably see the promise in that and that child's eyes that I absolutely had no idea the power of art what art could be that's the most important thing they aren't in you I mean it happens in you it's about your possibilities your future it should be like people's daily affirmation in the end you really don't care about objects you care about people and that's really kind of the highest state that our can take you to Pharrell Williams here hi I'm joy Bryant I'm Eric repair I'm Tom Colicchio I'm dr. Frank Lippmann they're all stopped on the table the host of across the board host of artists all host of hook up host of the show be well week be well weekend on the reserved Channel it's only on reserve you know that you can follow my show on social media sites like Facebook Follow us on Twitter if you're a fan of my show hit the like button all of the above share me with your friends treat yourself go check out a new episode of my show hooked up and if you want to leave comments feedbacks ideas whatever love to hear from you leave a comment and if you don't want to miss the show be sure to subscribe the one is like down here where is it here somewhere down here thanks for watching the reserve channel only on YouTube throw caution to the wind and ask yourself what rules [Music] you

Channel: Reserve Channel

Views: 70,520

Rating: 4.8931475 out of 5

Keywords: Reserve, Channel, Reserve Channel, Uncommon, Content, UCP, extraordinary people, culture, celebrities, doctors, chefs, non-fiction, non fiction, original, Karim Rashid, Kenny Scharf, Pharrell Williams, pop art, pop surrealism, pluralism, Boeing, Keith Haring, Andy Warhol, ART010

Id: 24GEe2J1qkE

Length: 25min 19sec (1519 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 24 2013