From 22 February to 29 June 2008, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Lyon is presenting one of the biggest exhibitions ever organized in France in homage to Keith Haring, an emblematic figure of the New York art scene of the 1980s, who would have been 50 in 2008.
This exceptional exhibition has been entrusted to the Italian curator Gianni Mercurio and is being organised in close collaboration with the Keith Haring Foundation in New York. It presents an unprecedented ensemble of works from the most important American and European collections, both public and private.
The artist
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Nom de l'artisteKeith Haring
Born in Reading, Pennsylvania in 1958, Keith Haring became interested in drawing at an early age, learning basic cartooning skills from his father. Immersed in popular culture - the Beatnik movement, the rock music of the 1970s and psychedelic culture - he took inspiration from comic books and animated cartoons but also the works of the Cobra movement.
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The retrospective will be set out in a deliberately nonchronological sequence. The artist's short career, spanning the years from 1980 to 1990, is viewed as a whole. Like Keith Haring in his own work, filling the canvas, putting his art in the most unexpected places, covering even objects and bodies, the exhibition will take over the museum, taking possession of the spaces in order to immerse visitors in the colourful, dynamic and teeming world of this artist.
It comprehensively deploys Haring's practice, including its essential paintings on tarpaulin and its monumental paintings (including the canvas made in 1987 for the Casino at Knokke-leZoute). Most of all, though, it allows visitors to discover the extraordinary diversity of the supports and media that Haring used so freely - vinyl paint, acrylic enamel paint, chalk, ink, felt pen, on canvas, metal, paper, wood and even the human body (including that of Grace Jones in 1985).
Whether on relatively classical supports (canvas, paper, metal, etc.) or more unexpected ones, such as the BMW, also presented in the exhibition (“Original Keith Haring Object Z1”, 1990), beyond the apparent gaiety of the images we are aware of Haring's interest in the big issues of the day: AIDS, drugs, the power of money, etc. For Haring worked at the heart of everyday life.
There are, too, moments of questioning and revolt: the apocalyptic visions and monstrous creatures in his work transcribe the scourges of the modern world, such as the nuclear threat and the AIDS virus, and heighten the intensity of his very personal iconography.
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80's
Inspired by graffiti and concerned to reach a broad public, Haring made his “Subway Drawings” in chalk on advertising billboards covered with black paper. He took part in group shows such as Club 57, starting in 1981, where he presented his monumental installations.
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Drawings
A big ensemble of more than a hundred drawings reveals the diversity of Haring's graphic world and the directness of his style, expressing sincerity and passion by means of a continuous and consummate line. The influence of classical art is manifest here, as is that of African, Asian and South American cultures
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Paintings on fences
Never before seen by the general public, the series of paintings on fences are highlight of the show, as are the “Subway Drawings” (some only as photographs, the originals having sadly been destroyed). This exceptional ensemble, made on a construction site fence in New York, shows the artist's powerful need to occupy urban space and to break free of the cultural milieu and the art market
