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Kenny Scharf Completes Mural on Houston Street, Following in the Footsteps of Friend Keith Haring

By Patrick Hedlund | November 30, 2010 2:49pm

By Patrick Hedlund

DNAinfo News Editor

LOWER EAST SIDE — Former East Villager Kenny Scharf completed his mural on the Houston Street graffiti wall this week after spending the Thanksgiving holiday adding his name to the growing list of street artists to work on the famous canvas.

Scharf used his signature cartoon style in spray-painting the piece, which replaces Barry McGee's tag tribute and Shepard Fairey's controversial art-show advertisement before that.

The much-talked-about wall at the corner of the Bowery has almost come full circle with the work of Scharf, a friend and contemporary of pop artist Keith Haring, who first made the wall famous in the 1980s. Haring's original mural was reproduced on the wall in 2008.

Scharf began work on the wall last Wednesday, completing the colorful collection of comic faces Monday night.

"I've been spraying like nuts lately," he said last week.

On the same day Scharf started working on his mural, he also added a small-scale piece to the exterior of a new art gallery on East 9th Street, across from where he used to live.