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<\/p>\nFifty years ago, Kenny Scharf helped shape pop surrealism in New York\u2019s East Village. Klaus Nomi burst upon the rock scene in 1979 when he backed David Bowie on “Saturday Night Live,” four years before becoming one of the first prominent public figures to die of AIDS-related complications. <\/p>\n
A new exhibition in the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery Annex invites visitors to witness the enduring legacy of these visionaries who dared to imagine a more colorful, queer and otherworldly reality. It\u2019s called \u201cTime SPLAT!\u201d and it will be on view Aug. 20 through Dec. 5.<\/p>\n
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Courtesy of Bob Rauschenberg Gallery<\/p>\n
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Bob Rauschenberg Gallery website<\/p>\n
Kenny Scharf was prominently featured alongside Klaus Nomi in MoMA’s 2017 exhibition, ‘Club 57: Film, Performance, and Art in the East Village, 1978\u20131983.’<\/p>\n
MORE INFORMATION:<\/p>\n
The Bob Rauschenberg Gallery\u2019s next exhibition is \u201cKlaus Nomi & Kenny Scharf: Time SPLAT!\u201d It is a landmark exhibition celebrating the synergistic creativity and era-defining work of two seminal artists who helped shape the underground art scene in New York City\u2019s East Village in the late 1970s and early \u201980s. \u201cTime SPLAT!\u201d bridges the gap between Kenny Scharf\u2019s signature, ethereal “pop surrealist” landscapes and characters and the highly theatrical, extraterrestrial persona of the now legendary performer Klaus Nomi.<\/p>\n
\u201cTime SPLAT!\u201d is more than a retrospective. Visitors will experience a playful yet profound collision or \u201csplat\u201d of time – where Kenny Scharf\u2019s recurring motifs of cartoonish joy and nuclear-age anxiety meet Klaus Nomi\u2019s operatic, avant-garde futurism. A selection of Scharf\u2019s vibrant paintings, transformed found objects, uniquely customized clothing and cosmic printed editions are presented in direct dialogue with vintage artifacts, stage worn costumes, props and rare performance documentation capturing Nomi\u2019s tragically brief yet spectacular career.<\/p>\n
Together, these elements mark a pivotal moment in art history when new wave music, street art and high-concept performance met, merged and forever reshaped contemporary culture.<\/p>\n
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Courtesy of Bob Rauschenberg Gallery<\/p>\n
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Bob Rauschenberg Gallery website <\/p>\n
Visitors will experience a playful yet profound collision of Kenny Scharf\u2019s recurring motifs of cartoonish joy and nuclear-age anxiety and Klaus Nomi\u2019s operatic, avant-garde futurism. <\/p>\n
Exhibition details & visitor information<\/p>\n
Exhibition: \u201cKlaus Nomi & Kenny Scharf: Time SPLAT!\u201dDates: Aug. 24 \u2013 Dec. 5Location: Bob Rauschenberg Gallery Annex (Building J-118), Florida SouthWestern State College, 8099 College Parkway, Fort Myers, Florida 33919Admission: Free and open to the publicGallery Hours: Monday \u2013 Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (closed holidays).Special Events: Please note there will be no formal opening festivities. Details regarding a closing reception featuring artist Kenny Scharf and additional related programming will be announced as confirmed.<\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
The Bob Rauschenberg Gallery Annex is located in the Rush Library, Building J-118, on the Fort Myers campus of Florida SouthWestern State College. <\/p>\n
About Kenny Scharf<\/p>\n
Kenny Scharf rose to prominence in the East Village during the late 1970s alongside close friends and collaborators Ann Magnuson, Joey Arias, Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. He enjoyed a career that spans more than four decades. He is renowned for street-art-infused canvases, mind-altering installations and playful “pop surrealist” iconography.<\/p>\n
He was included in the 1985 Whitney Biennial and early immersive environments such as his famous “Cosmic Caverns.” Since then, he has enjoyed more than 100 solo exhibitions worldwide.<\/p>\n
His notable museum retrospectives and major surveys include shows at the Pasadena Museum of California Art in 2004, the Hammer Museum in 2015, the Nassau County Museum of Art, The Brant Foundation in 2024\u20132025 and MAM Shanghai in 2025.<\/p>\n
Scharf was also prominently featured (alongside Klaus Nomi) in MoMA’s landmark 2017 exhibition, \u201cClub 57: Film, Performance, and Art in the East Village, 1978\u20131983.\u201d<\/p>\n
His work is held in permanent collections across the globe, including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Broad, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1785979573_922_.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
\/<\/p>\n
WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
The Bob Rauschenberg Gallery Annex is located in the Rush Library, Building J-118, on the Fort Myers campus of Florida Southwestern State College.<\/p>\n
About Klaus Nomi<\/p>\n
Klaus Nomi (born Klaus Sperber in Immenstadt, Bavaria, in 1944) worked as an usher at the Deutsche Opera in West Berlin before moving to New York City in 1972. While working as a pastry chef and nightclub singer, he embedded himself in the downtown scene. Possessing an extraordinary countertenor vocal range, Nomi captivated audiences by blending rock, disco and cabaret with operatic arias\u2014spanning compositions from Henry Purcell and Saint-Sa\u00ebns to covers of Elvis Presley, Chubby Checker and Donna Summer.<\/p>\n
Nomi\u2019s highly stylized aesthetic \u2014 including his iconic, geometric tuxedo inspired by dadaist Tristan Tsara and David Bowie \u2014 led to a career-defining performance backing Bowie on “Saturday Night Live” in 1979, an RCA recording contract, and international tours.<\/p>\n
Notwithstanding his tragic death at the age of 39 from AIDS-related complications on Aug. 6, 1983, Nomi left an indelible mark on music, fashion and visual art.<\/p>\n
His papers and archive have been recently acquired by Harvard University\u2019s special collections.<\/p>\n
Support for WGCU\u2019s arts & culture reporting comes from the Estate of Myra Janco Daniels, the Charles M. and Joan R. Taylor Foundation, and Naomi Bloom in loving memory of her husband, Ron Wallace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fifty years ago, Kenny Scharf helped shape pop surrealism in New York\u2019s East Village. Klaus Nomi burst upon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363909,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":["post-363908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}