KEITH HARING | Untitled

Lucio Amelio, Naples 
Alessandro Grassi, Milan
Thence by descent to the present owner 

Prato, Centro Prato, Colour Code: Works from the Alessandro Grassi Collection, September - December 2018

Maria Cristina Mundici, Collezione Privata, Milan 1993, p. 249, illustrated in colour

Colour: The colour in the catalogue illustration is fairly accurate. Condition: This work is in very good condition. Very close inspection reveals some light handling marks to all four edges and two short and extremely faint and unobtrusive rubmarks to the centre right of the lower edge. Extremely close inspection reveals a short and faint stretcher bar mark to the left of the upper edge and some extremely light canvas draw to the upper two corner tips. No restoration is apparent when examined under ultra-violet light.
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Painted in 1983, Untitled embodies and celebrates a vivacious moment of converging social stratospheres in the vibrant zeitgeist of New York in the early eighties. This was the year that Haring met Madonna and Andy Warhol, and positioned himself as a standard bearer in the birth of early 80’s downtown culture. Emerging out of the schizophrenic nature of New York’s cultural scene at the end of the seventies, Haring’s parties and gallery openings brought together a brilliant synthesis of strikingly disparate social cliques from the gay dance club culture, to hip hop, wild-style graffiti, and rap scenes, to downtown punks and conceptual artists. The artist revered the many facets of New York’s burgeoning creative and social circles. Wherever Haring went, he brought with him a melting pot of New York’s vanguard culture. In Haring’s words: “all these worlds were coming together in a big mishmash of people that never really existed in a gallery before me” (Keith Haring cited in: Jeffrey Deitch, Suzanne Geiss, Julia Gruen, Ed.s, Keith Haring, New York 2008, p. 212).  1983 was a significant year for the young Keith Haring. Just months before, the artist burst into the New York Art scene with his debut solo exhibition at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery, and by 1984 he was a household name, with solo shows in major Art institutions across the globe. 1983 marks the crystallisation of the artist’s mature style, bridging the gap between two distinct phases of his tragically brief artistic career.

With his instantly recognisable and highly legible forms, Haring entirely circumnavigated the traditional path from underground culture to mainstream popularity and art-world stardom. The artist’s remarkable application of Pop imagery and tabulated symbolic language succinctly captured the booming social culture of the downtown New York scene in the early eighties, and as such became immensely popular at breakneck speed. His signature lexicon of stick figures, crawling babies and barking dogs became ubiquitous through his subway drawings and public performances. As Haring took his signature hieroglyphic language to the streets, his practice vibrated with enthusiasm for a utopic, populist art form rooted in connection and community. Haring envisaged a universal, anti-elitist language of direct and simplified form rendered in exuberant popping primary colours. This was an art for the people.

Untitled stands as a relic of the optimism of this moment of Haring’s practice. Rendered in bold contoured lines of vibrant lime green, two androgynous human silhouettes greet one another with an embrace. The pared-down palette vibrates with chromatic intensity bouncing from wall to wall within the perfectly square borderline. Electrifying lines of primary red radiate from the figures, evoking a sense of celebration that reverberates in waves across this monolithic lemon-yellow canvas, pulsating in beams not limited to the surface of the picture plane but spilling  out to the viewer, with an infectious feeling of pure joy imbued with the spirit of the times. Untitled is a celebration of jovial coexistence. At once vibrantly expressive and lyrically balanced, the present work is brimming with a potent energy of optimism. Rendered in Haring’s brilliant, universal visual language, the figures pulsate with a sense of riotous glee and youthful exuberance perfectly reflective of this period of the artist’s carer. Untitled epitomises Haring’s brilliant ability to convey feeling and emotion through forms distilled to their most basic, essential components.