In the 1980s, Kenny Scharf shot to the top of New York's downtown art scene with his iconic paintings of freakazoid, cartoony creatures. Scharf's style, which drew from the television shows he watched as a child, not only borrowed images from popular culture, but spoke of their resonance in the subconscious; Scharf calls it Pop Surrealism. But before long, his work, like that of so many others of his generation, was dismissed by the same art world that had made him a star. He was effectively sent to pasture and relegated, in many minds, to art's stable of one-trick ponies.

Nevertheless, Scharf's work extends beyond the zany, googly-eyed characters for which he's best known. His current show, at New York's Paul Kasmin Gallery, includes pastiches of Americana—brand logos, donuts and Chevys—in sometimes overwhelming paintings that both celebrate and critique consumerism. Meanwhile, around the corner, his over-the-top Closet #24 (pictured) is a black-lit, Day-Glo environment packed to the gills with everything from Tweetie birds and silver Christmas garlands to discarded furniture, appliances and scraps of everything else. Scharf has been creating these installations since the early 1980s, and they could be considered a precursor to the found-object assemblages that many emerging artists (think Christian Holstad and Robert Melee, among others) create now. We recently met Scharf, visiting from Los Angeles, in Closet #24 where, sitting on its faux fur and pleather bean bags, he talked about his love of junk, why he deserves another look and his impending return to New York.

You've been making these Closet installations for a while. But the original one was in a real walk-in closet, wasn't it?

Yeah, in the early 80s. Keith Haring and I had a loft together on 39th Street and 6th Avenue, near Times Square, and that's where it started, in the closet. And actually, some of the objects here—like this fuse box and scrap of foil, which used to be an entire foil plant with branches and leaves, though all that's left is this little piece—were in that first one. They just get reused over and over. But the urban-ness of the area was so intense that it became like this little refuge that I made.

Did any shenanigans go on in there?

Oh, god, yes. Plenty of them. I have some videotapes. There were a lot of parties and tripping and the things that happen with those types of activities. I could identify almost every single item in here and tell you its history.

So this is kind of like a time capsule. But where did this pack rat instinct of yours come from?

I love garbage. Back then, we found our clothes in the garbage, all these 50's clothes, and that was part of the look we all had. With these kinds of installations, I use a lot of appliances, thrown-out TVs, vacuum cleaners, telephones and, now, computers as well. It always changes.

Would you say that your attraction to garbage relates to the kitschy imagery—or cultural garbage—of your paintings?

Completely. I have a love-hate thing with consumerism. I love the objects and the packaging and the allure, but I hate what they're doing to our environment and the way people are pressured into owning things.

Maybe we treat artists like they're throwaway, as well.

Oh yeah. I've been thrown away a few times. But I keep coming back.

Does it get on your nerves that every few years, it seems, someone finds it necessary to announce your comeback?

I think I was typecast for a long time as some airhead club kid because I was going out and making art in nightclubs. I think a lot of people think they know exactly who I am and what I do, but they've never really looked. They just see a cartoon head and go, "Oh, yeah, that's Kenny Scharf." But I hope that the longer I hang in there, I'll get to show people what I'm really about. But I've never stopped doing what I do.

How has your work evolved?

My basic themes haven't really changed at all, but I think I'm a better painter, better skilled and more focused. But I can change styles like changing the channel on TV, like going from cartoon to news to soap opera stations. It just so happens that people know me for the cartoon station, but I'm constantly switching channels.

How do you feel about the recent closing of Pop Shop, the store Keith Haring opened in 1986 on Lafayette Street?

It's a little sad. I remember when Keith opened it, everyone was like, "What are you doing on Lafayette Street? No one's going to go there." And now it's like one big outdoor mall. It blows me away how much a place can change.

It must have been fun back then.

It was a lot of fun, a really creative experience. It was music and dance and fashion and art, everything was all mixed up. People weren't doing it for money—there was no money—it was just for expression. I remember Klaus Nomi's New Wave performance at Fiorucci. And there was this thing I did at this club called Nobodies over on 8th Avenue and 14th Street. I made this mural of a big atomic bomb in black light, and then we had this party where everyone was body painting, probably tripping on mushrooms. I feel bad for the guy who owned the place, because we trashed it. I think the next day, he'd painted over the mural and made sure we'd never be let back in. And then there were the Happenings at Club 57, where Ann Magnuson was the hostess extraordinaire. And it was in the basement of a church!

But you live in L.A. now.

Yeah. I've been a gypsy, moving around since I left New York in 1992. Even before that, I was in Brazil [where Scharf still has a house], but once I stopped living here, I was in Miami, and then six years ago, I went back to L.A. But I think I'm moving back to New York, actually. In March.

Really? Why?

I love the spontaneity. I mean, I just ran into [the 80's model and downtown fixture] Edwige! That would never, ever happen in L.A., just bumping into somebody who you're really close with. Never.

So why did you leave?

One of the reasons was because—and this is kind of depressing—but I'd lost so many friends [to AIDS and other causes] that I'd walk around the streets and every corner was another memory of somebody who was gone. It was too heavy. But now, after all these years, those memories aren't sad anymore. They're happy.