Last Saturday, I visited De Young Museum in San Francisco to see the special exhibit "Keith Haring The Political Line", which was my first encounter with this iconic artist, who was mostly active in the 1980s.
Without direct experience of living through the traumatic periods in the aftermath of Vietnam War and the rampage of AIDS in the US, I sometime had hard time to connect to Keith Haring's works, and the impact of his works were less palpable, though I readily acknowledge his importance and influence in the art world. That said, in some of his works, I felt some eerie resonances, such as the Untitled from 1981 below, which could be easily depicting the national shame of Guantánamo:
Untitled, 1981
Despite the cultural distance from his more pop-influenced works, I did feel his works engaging and several of them quite visually beautiful. Below are those works left strongest impressions on me:
Untitled, 1981
Everybody Knows Where Meat Comes from, it Comes from the Store, 1978
Untitled, 1978
Untitled, 1985
Untitled, 1983 (with Kermit Oswald)
Walking in the Rain, 1980
Untitled, 1982
Untitled, 1985
Untitled (Apartheid), 1984, & Untitled
A Pile of Crowns for Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1986, & Silence=Death, 1988
The Last Rainforest
Sarcophagus, 1983, (with LA II (Angel Ortiz)
Outside the exhibition hall, one could see the motif of his work in the gift shop, and on a vintage car:
Other Related posts on Art · 文化 · Kunst:
- Modernism from the National Gallery of Art in De Young Museum, San Francisco
- Venetian Masterpieces from Vienna at De Young Museum
- Last Call - "The Girl With A Pearl Earring" in De Young Museum, San Francisco
- Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris - De Young Museum, San Francisco
- Post-Impressionism Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay, De Young Museum, San Francisco 2010-11
- My Favorite De Young Museum Collections
- Another Look at De Young Museum in San Francisco
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