What's on in Madrid
Kenny Scharf, Junglematic, 2023

Museo Thyssen-BornemiszaPaseo del Prado

Kenny Scharf

Now showing29 September 2026 – 17 January 2027€14

Retrospective of the East Village artist and urban art pioneer, with paintings, sculptures, installations and murals blending pop culture and surrealism.

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Scharf starts his canvases on the floor. He pours thinned acrylic and lets gravity work until the puddle in the middle turns into a whirlpool, then goes over it with spray paint, silkscreen and oil. He grew up in the San Fernando Valley in the 1960s, before emission controls, and remembers days when he could barely open his eyes.

The 26 works are grouped by theme, not date: landscapes from his long stays in Brazil, four big paintings of trees as shamans, cosmic circles and vortices, and a chorus of blobz, his rubbery figures with eyes and mouths. You finish among the Moodz, round faces painted through the pandemic years, where no expression repeats. Under all of it is the climate. "I don't want to live on Mars," Scharf says. "This is a great planet."

It's in the Postpop rooms. Entry is €14 or €10 reduced, free for under-18s and for everyone on Mondays 12:00 to 16:00.

Look for

  • Junglematic

    Look for a single tree ringed by a jungle of impossible creatures, a 2023 painting lent by Blanca and Borja Thyssen-Bornemisza.

  • The tree-as-shaman paintings

    Four large canvases where hyperactive, delirious trees hold up whole ecosystems crawling with small creatures.

  • The Moodz

    Round painted faces made between 2018 and 2022, hung together as a mosaic in which no expression is used twice.

Good for

  • Small Kids
  • Teenagers

With kids

Under-18s go free, and Qué! recommends the show for children for its colour and recognisable faces.

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