Impersonators

This story of a Cindy Sherman impersonator reminded me of some graffiti I saw in a bathroom of the Whitney Museum many years ago. My friend Kenny and I had gone there for the Biennial which had an exhibit featuring Keith Haring and others of the neo-taggers (or whatever they were called). The bathroom walls were all painted over by Kenny Scharf [no relation to my friend] in his characteristically irritating doodle style. On top of the ugly stylized graffiti was a Sharpie’d scrawl: “Kenny Scharf is a pretentious asshole.”

I suspected this last bit was added by someone else, but maybe it was Scharf himself? Ira Glass is a bigshot and can get Cindy Sherman on the phone, but I was just some guy, all I could do was write Scharf a letter, c/o the Whitney Museum. I described the situation and asked if he was the one who had written, “Kenny Scharf is a pretentious asshole.” He did not reply.

2 thoughts on “Impersonators

  1. “Untitled Film Stills” still strikes as an amazing work. I find it hard to imagine Cindy Sherman approaching people at an exhibit but if someone approached me claiming to be Cindy Sherman I’d ask her about “Untitled Film Stills” – not sure what I’d ask exactly but I’d try to get a conversation going. I bet an impostor would be easy to spot within two minutes.

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