Untitled

Untitled, June 14, 1984 is a buoyant and expressive early work from the celebrated graffiti artist Keith Haring. Painted in 1984, the work marks Haring’s international ascent: that year, he was included in the 42nd Venice Biennale as well as in several traveling exhibitions at institutions including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Musée d’Art Modern de la Ville de Paris, and the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art, among others. In autumn of 2019, Haring will have his first major solo exhibition in the United Kingdom at Tate, Liverpool. The present work brims with the artist’s iconic figures that dance across a bright white ground. Outlined in vivid red, they are arrested in the moment of an ecstatic transformation. Haring first gained recognition for his street art, much of which was created surreptitiously in New York City’s subway tunnels. His spirited, animated forms are distinguished by their simplified lines and cheerful colour palette, but their apparent optimism belies the social commentary of the works themselves. Haring was a political activist and within these seemingly playful compositions, he explored questions around capitalism, sexuality and, later, the AIDS epidemic. As writer Ingrid Sischy reflected, ‘there’s an undeniable humanity in his unindividuated little people; at their best, in fact, they seem infused with the essential spirit of life’ (I. Sischy, ‘Kid Haring’, Vanity Fair, July 1997, https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/1997/07/01/kid-haring).