MSCHF on Humor, Loopholes, and Their New Perrotin Show ART2

MSCHF, the American art collective known for irreverent projects like Big Red Boots and Key4All, discusses their methods and motivations in an interview with ArtReview. The duo behind the collective, Kevin Wiesner and Lukas Bentel, emphasize that humor is a serious tool for engagement, not pranks. Their current exhibition at Perrotin in Los Angeles, titled ART2, features works such as Met's Sink of Theseus (2024), a cast-resin sink with fixtures swapped from a Metropolitan Museum of Art restroom, and Candy Airpods (2024). The show also includes microscopic knockoffs of designer handbags and paintings like Muralangelo (2024), where Michelangelo's David morphs into Murakami's Lonesome Cowboy. MSCHF rejects the label 'prankster' and instead focuses on exploiting legal and cultural loopholes, often with the help of their lawyer John Belcaster. They cite influences like Maurizio Cattelan, Dunne & Raby, DIS magazine, and K-Hole. The collective prioritizes audience reach over gallery containment, having built 300 websites and used platforms like Venmo and T-Mobile before being banned. They view virality as a tool, not an end, and aim for mass accessibility. The interview reveals their ethos of 'make it shittier' as shorthand for simplifying ideas to preserve core concepts. ART2 runs through June 1 at Perrotin, Los Angeles.