Keith Haring. Courtesy of Keith Haring Foundation. ©Keith Haring Foundation. The Brooklyn Museum (photo © Jaime Rojo)
March 16–July 8, 2012
Morris A. and Meyer Schapiro Wing, 5th Floor
Keith Haring: 1978–1982 is the first large-scale exhibition to explore the early career of one of the best-known American artists of the twentieth century. Tracing the development of Haring’s extraordinary visual vocabulary, the exhibition includes 155 works on paper, numerous experimental videos, and over 150 archival objects, including rarely seen sketchbooks, journals, exhibition flyers, posters, subway drawings, and documentary photographs.
The exhibition chronicles the period in Haring’s career from his arrival in New York City through the years when he started his studio practice and began making public and political art on the city streets. Immersing himself in New York’s downtown culture, he quickly became a fixture on the artistic scene, befriending other artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Kenny Scharf, as well as many of the most innovative cultural figures of the period. The critical role that these relationships played in Haring’s development as a public artist and facilitator of group exhibitions and performances is also explored. Pieces on view include a number of very early works never before seen in public; seven video pieces, including Painting Myself into a Corner (his first video piece) and Tribute to Gloria Vanderbilt; and collages created from cut-up fragments of his own writing, history textbooks, and newspapers.
Keith Haring: 1978–1982 is curated by Raphaela Platow. The exhibition is co-organized by the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, and the Kunsthalle Wien. The Brooklyn presentation is organized by Tricia Laughlin Bloom, Project Curator, and Patrick Amsellem, former Associate Curator of Photography, Brooklyn Museum.
This exhibition is made possible by Lisa and Dick Cashin with additional support provided by the Stephanie and Tim Ingrassia Contemporary Art Exhibition Fund.
Other Articles You May Like from BSA:
Norwegian curator, producer, social activist, and street artist VLEK aka Arne Vilhelm Tellefsen, has joined the street chorus in the west that vilifies Vladimir Putin in myriad ways. His new stencil ...
Using a 1992 Buick Park Avenue as your painting utensil is completely normal in late capitalism. So is calling yourself Shoe. In his latest exhibition, the graffiti writer and contemporary artist ...
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week. Shana Tova to our Jewish brothers and sisters, even as we mourn the Friday passing of one of Brooklyn's own, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She was born here on E...
Museums, Festivals, and Activism – three of the themes that garnered the most traffic on our published stories on BSA and The Huffington Post this year. From a scholarly Street Art related exhibiti...
Louis Masai and his friends Tee and Emil are in Detroit right now on the 2nd city of The Art of BEEing tour, and the Gray Wolf is on their minds because it is endangered. Their numbers have been cut...