Soma in Kinderland

Kenny Scharf’s Cosmic Cavern is unlike any other place on earth. For the last year Mr. Scharf, the artist and designer, has been giving monthly parties at the 2,000-square-foot basement in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, continuing a habit he began in 1980, when he made a closet in his apartment with Keith Haring into a clublike destination — the Cosmic Closet.

Tucked away in the basement below Scharf’s live-in Studio on Metropolitan Avenue, the Cosmic Cavern defies a description, mostly because it is constantly changing. It is a space in which only glow-in-the-dark materials are permitted, and is illuminated only by black-light. The tables, chairs, walls and surfaces are covered in sculptures, mirrors, materials of all different colors and textures—these objects are almost all found, donated or discarded in the Cavern.

Those who move through it, most likely attendees at one of Scharf’s monthly dance parties in the Cavern, are encouraged to contribute to the space, making for a wholly interactive experience for visitors—much like Michael Alan’s Living Installation, performance series created by Greenpoint-based artist Michael Alan involving several nude performers and an audience, members of whom invited to observe, absorb and in turn create their own artwork in response to the installation.

Like the Cosmic Cavern itself, the Living Installation is meant to be ever-changing and always evolving, making for a perfectly bizarre and truly otherworldly collaboration.