Keith Haring at the Brant Foundation: 8 Important Works

Burckhardt: This ink painting was done on a huge sheet of paper, and Haring painted it all in his head. We know from the video of him making the piece that he already had the image he wanted to create in mind. In the middle is a very important figure, which we have also seen in some tarpaulin works: one person supporting another person. Is it a corpse or someone cheering?

Hofbauer: When he painted these figures, it was usually for respect and elevation. As for the figures below, were they tied up and fleeing the scene?

Burckhardt: There are always two sides. They might be running away, or they might be cheering. There is often ambiguity in Haring’s work, and this is a very important point.

Buchhardt: We are very proud to display some of Harlem’s most important subway drawings. Many of them – e.g. robots and airplanes—Includes fiberglass frame. The subway served as a laboratory for Haring to develop his artistic language and ideas, many of which he later transformed into large-scale paintings in his studio.

When he created these paintings, New York was going through a bad time. There were no ads on the subway, just blank black paper on which Haring would draw. He’ll use what the subway offers him.

Hofbauer: The “X” was Haring’s way of marking the things that were important to him. Similar to how light highlights important things.

Burckhardt: Haring probably drew 12,000 subway maps. We feel this way because his friend, the photographer Zeng Guangzhi, followed Harlem through the subway system many times and took more than 22,000 photos, so we can estimate it from this.

By the way, Haring was very annoyed with people ripping off subway drawings because he made them for New Yorkers on the subway, not collectors. But we’re happy and lucky that people did.

Buchhardt: We are very proud of the nine tarps featured in the show. All of this was particularly important to Haring.

Hofbauer: It would be a very powerful moment to have them all on one wall, aligned in the right constellations.

Haring discovered, more or less randomly, that tarps (originally used for trucks, etc.) would be a good art material for him. He was looking for a material that would allow him to maximize his performance. Where can such dimensions and proportions be found? He saw them in his truck and realized he could make something really, really huge using tarps.

Burckhardt: They’re very rare and difficult to track.

Hofbauer: Harlin has a very meaningful line about the character with the hole in his stomach. When he created this work, he was reacting to the death of John Lennon on December 8, 1980.

Hofbauer: This is a wonderful and ambitious work. We have to remember that Haring went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and studied Egyptian art there. The dogs were closely related to the creature Anubis, which he may have seen at the Met. They also cover breakdancing, performance and public spaces.

Buchhardt: This is a great example of Haring’s use of fluorescent paint on metal work. We do have a blacklight room in the exhibition, but this work will be displayed outside of the blacklight room. We only present real masterpieces in the show, some of which will be independent.

Burckhardt: Haring made a lot of vases. This is one of the larger pieces and the only one in the exhibition. All the scenes were hand-painted by him, and there were a lot of them.

Hofbauer: His line was impeccable. He didn’t do any sketches or auditions or anything. He just paints. And he has perfect lines.

Burckhardt: When Haring was at the Met, he also looked at Greek and Roman vases. The upper part of the vase is more complex, but the lower part has bands with a crawling baby, another, and other figures. It’s sort of like the border of a Greek vase.

Burckhardt: Haring created these storyboards on long rolls of paper in his studio. They are awesome and nearly human in height. He first showed these works in 1980 at PS 122 (now the New York Performance Space), just blocks from what is now the Brandt Foundation.

Hofbauer: In the middle image, there’s a flying saucer and a mating couple. What I find particularly humorous are the lines emanating from the couple, which he uses to give an object or figure the power to shine.

Burckhardt: Flying saucers are also very important. This refers to his different sexual orientation. It’s a way of marking difference and strength.

Buchhardt: This is a work in the exhibition from his 1983 show at Fun Gallery. It’s huge, nearly 9 feet long. It looks like a map of the United States and he originally displayed it on a colorful spray-painted wall, which we did when we included it in an exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne (2019-20). He, we want the audience to focus on each piece, so we present it in different ways.