Keith Haring

This book is published on the occasion of Keith Haring’s exhibition at Gladstone Brussels in 2022. works on paper by Keith Haring. Showcasing works on paper created on December 9, 1989, weeks before his untimely death from AIDS, the series within this publication celebrates Haring’s constant evolution as an artist and career-long determination to push the boundaries of his practice up until his passing. Through the artist’s uncanny ability to constantly reinvent himself and bring forth complex narratives to life through his singular approach to artmaking, this late series is a revelatory body of work that highlights Haring’s strength and inquisitive nature as an artist, which continues to influence contemporary artists working today. 

 

Made with gouache and black ink on Japanese paper, each drawing presents an indecipherable, layered narrative created with both familiar and less prominent characters and symbols from the artist’s oeuvre. Birds peck at nude bodies and orifices; black hearts and amorphous blobs float in space and are stabbed by knives and beaks; and log-like elements grow from the earth or are violently split apart. There is struggle, there is acceptance, and life continues to evolve and repeat itself over space and time. Without any specific information left behind by the artist about the meaning behind these compositions, one is left to examine each work to posit what these vignettes might be saying without a set framework. Each element is approached with a remarkable technical maturity and clarity that signifies both a beginning and an end for Haring: his ongoing boundary-pushing exploration of his practice and a reckoning with his own mortality and the work he will eventually leave behind.

 

Published by Gladstone, 2022

 

Hardcover
English
58 pages
9.8 x 11 inches; 25 x 28 cm
ISBN 979-8-218-20608-6