Keith Haring: Future Primeval

by Keith Haring, Maarten Van De Guchte, William S. Burroughs (Foreword)

Excerpt from the Curating an exhibition of an artist who virtually created around the clock for ten years is an unwieldy task. I decided early on to concentrate on works that have had minimum exposure in publications or exhibitions in the U.S. Haring’s curious eschewal of traditional art mediums in favor of discarded or commercial materials such as vinyl, metal shelving, automobile panels and garden statuary has been given great emphasis in the exhibition. More than two dozen subway drawings are presented for the first time in an above-ground context to illuminate their seminal importance in the artist’s oeuvre. The earliest work included is a pre-figurative Sumi ink drawing done in 1979, while Haring attended the School of Visual Arts. I chose 1985 as a cutoff date predominantly in order to encompass the full evolution of the subway drawings, executed from 1981 to 1985; and also to examine the earliest works by the artist alluding directly to the death knell of AIDS; to include small-scale examples of the painted steel sculptures that were fabricated in the later 1980s; and to avoid the weighty and often misused retrospective. Haring made art until the last days of his brief yet incredibly prolific and benevolent life. I anticipate an eventual exhibition of far greater scale than Future Primeval that will amass major works spanning the compressed decade of his artistic career.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Hip Hop, Graffiti, Essays

125 pages, Paperback

First published January 28, 1987

About the author

Keith Haring (1958–1990) grew up in Pennsylvania and moved to New York in 1978 to enroll in the School of Visual Arts. Over the following decade, he made some of the most widely recognized artwork of the twentieth century.

Reviews

[kylee]

skipped Thompson’s essay as it does not pertain to my research- seems interesting tho!!

[Jaimie · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was a bit of a risk reading two Keith Haring books almost back to back (especially when the first was based on the magnum opus that he had planned to publish before his untimely death), but this catalogue from his major retrospective exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1997 stood up well in comparison. I found about half of the written pieces readable (a higher percentage than normal!), focusing my efforts on those written by his close friend Ann Magnuson and the small panoply of interviews which revealed a more intimate perspective on Haring’s art and his life. I tire of art critique, no matter how well-informed and perceptive, as it often creates a distance between the artist and their work, and in the case of Haring it feels particularly adverse; his life was his art, so reading a summary or interpretation of his life by a third party just doesn’t cut it. It takes a personal touch to get the real story (or at least a version of the real story), and the small glimpses provided alongside the artwork here were heartfelt in the best way possible. The accompanying artwork was expectedly wonderful as well, showcasing examples from a wide range of Haring’s output. Some of the pieces we have seen before, of course, but I was stunned by the range of 3D pieces, photographic/textual collages, and apparently never-ending paintings and drawings. Is it actually possible to see all of Haring’s work? At this point, I would argue it’s not, since the more I consume, the more of it there seems to be! Not that we’re complaining, since we could never tire of his inventive, satirical, thought-provoking, and downright fun style!