
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:



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