Episodes

  • Untitled
    1988
    acrylic on canvas
    Private collection
    All images © Keith Haring Foundation

    This untitled work shows a human figure struggling to walk up a staircase while carrying a massive egg tied to its back. The egg is cracked and a sperm with devil horns bursts from its shell. The painting speaks profoundly to the AIDS epidemic that took the lives of so many within Haring’s community, including his own. Using monumental scale, a palette drained of colour, and graphic imagery, Haring represented the impossible weight of the AIDS crisis.

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  • The Great White Way
    1988
    acrylic on canvas
    The Keith Haring Foundation
    All images © Keith Haring Foundation

    Stretched in the shape of a penis, this massive painting is a critical visualization of what author bell hooks described as “imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.” The pink phallus is decorated with black lines that make up an intricate scene of weapons, violence, torture, and other abuses of power—a visual representation of the problems of Euro-American society. Haring’s title implies the white supremacist ideology underpinning these activities. The painting shows a phallocentric world in which profit and power in the name of “good” and God are used as tools of oppression. The Great White Way is a prime example of what is perhaps Haring’s greatest skill: the ability to make something look like shallow fun—in this case, a massive, cartoonish, pink, candy-striped penis—while simultaneously speaking truth to some of society’s foremost tyrannies.

  • Untitled
    1985
    Acrylic and oil on canvas
    Courtesy of The Parker Foundation
    All images © Keith Haring Foundation

    Haring grew up and came out as a gay man during a time that encouraged increased freedom of sexual expression, largely fuelled by the counterculture, women’s rights, and gay liberation movements of the 1960s and 1970s. By the early 1980s, a new countermovement emerged that was led by conservative politicians and the religious right. Simultaneously, the AIDS epidemic was growing.

    Painted in 1985, this untitled work responds to these realities, showing a fiery hellscape of sexual aggression and torture. The theme of hell—often depicted with scenes of uninhibited sexuality—has been addressed throughout art history, from Auguste Rodin’s The Gates of Hell (1880–1917) to Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights (1500s). Haring’s version remains true to his signature line, while also depicting a cast of human and animal figures as well as Christian symbols such as frogs, serpents, and angels.

  • Untitled
    1984
    acrylic and enamel on canvas
    The Broad Art Foundation, Los Angeles
    All images © Keith Haring Foundation

    During the 1980s, wealth inequality in the United States grew significantly under Ronald Reagan’s neoliberal trickle-down economics policies known as Reaganomics. Haring criticized greed and capitalism in several works featuring the image of the “capitalist pig.” This tarp painting portrays a pig spewing money-green vomit made up of computers, televisions, clocks, airplanes, and other modern-day objects. The green bile pools on the ground from which little figures climb, suckling the sickly pig’s teats. This work is a monstrous depiction of the struggle of production in an era when everything was deemed consumable.

  • Tree of Life
    1985
    acrylic on canvas tarpaulin with metal grommets
    Private collection
    All images © Keith Haring Foundation

    This large painting is hung in landscape orientation and is approximately 10’ high x 12’ wide. It is created in Haring’s instantly recognizable style which repeats brightly coloured and stylised shapes outlined in black . Tree of Life is a painting of a large green tree contrasted against a bright pink background, underneath it, four yellow dancing figures are shown from the waist up. It is mounted directly to the wall with screws through grommets, 13 across and 11 high.

    The top two thirds of the painting are taken up by the trees leaves which sprout off two main branches that split off at the trunk. The branches corkscrew, as do twiggy offshoots. Each offshoot results in either an oval leaf shape with one line down the centre indicating the fold of the leaf shape or, sprouts a similar shape with an added round head and pumping arms with rounded hands on the ends. In total there are 9 tree leaf figures with arms bent at elbows and raised up and there are 12 leaves. The crown of the tree is painted so that it fills up the canvas giving it a rectangle shape. Outlining the tree leaves and bodies, are stacks of dashes which indicate movement and seem to cause the tree to visually quiver, vibrate and shake in a chorus of celebratory movement. Filling up all the available space around these shapes, Haring adds another familiar element. Straight black lines radiate outward around the heads of the tree leaf figures, using a visual shorthand for what could be interpreted as awareness, enlightenment, anger, confusion or something else. The following exhibition wall quote speaks to this: “I am interested in making art to be experienced and explored by as many individuals as possible, with as many different individual ideas about the given piece with no final meaning attached.” Keith Haring.

    Spread out in the lower third of the work are the head, torso and arms of four larger figures, two on each side of the tree trunk. Their arms are raised up with elbows bent, motion lines in effect. Their yellow bodies are filled in with a pattern of brighter orange squares. In the centre of their round heads in face position is a single black “x” shape.

    Some of Haring’s favorite party music can be heard emanating from a nearby room which celebrates his use of Day Glo paints. Day-Glo colors are shades of orange, pink, green, and yellow which are so bright that they seem to glow.

    The walls outside this room and in close proximity to Tree of Life are vertically striped in orange paint and pink Dayglo paint. They back a pair of architectural columns that Haring created and painted in a similar style.

    Also close by is a large triangular canvas entitled, “A Pile of Crowns for Jean-Michel Basquiat”, in which Haring pays homage to his contemporary, artist Jean Michel Basquiat. Haring has painted Basquiat’s signature symbol, a three pointed crown, in a triangular mound of crowns. It has black lines emanating outward around the pile. He includes a small letter c copyright symbol in the lower right corner of this work.

  • The AGO is home to the Thomson Collection of Ship Models: over 130 examples of miniaturized ships spanning hundreds of years of maritime history.

    One of the most important models in the collection is George Stockwell’s (1729-1805) 1774 model of the Bristol. Designed in 1768 and completed in 1775, the Bristol was a 50-gun fourth-rate ship of the line built for the Royal Navy amidst England’s war to suppress the independence movement in its American colonies.

    Image credit:
    British fourth-rate two-decker 50-gun warship: Bristol (detail)
    1774
    George Stockwell, (British, 1729-1805)
    Georgian Model, scale1:48
    The Thomson Collection
    Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto

  • The AGO is home to the Thomson Collection of Ship Models: over 130 examples of miniaturized ships spanning hundreds of years of maritime history.

    One of the most important models in the collection is George Stockwell’s (1729-1805) 1774 model of the Bristol. Designed in 1768 and completed in 1775, the Bristol was a 50-gun fourth-rate ship of the line built for the Royal Navy amidst England’s war to suppress the independence movement in its American colonies.

    Image credit:
    British fourth-rate two-decker 50-gun warship: Bristol (detail)
    1774
    George Stockwell, (British, 1729-1805)
    Georgian Model, scale1:48
    The Thomson Collection
    Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto

  • The AGO is home to the Thomson Collection of Ship Models: over 130 examples of miniaturized ships spanning hundreds of years of maritime history.

    One of the most important models in the collection is George Stockwell’s (1729-1805) 1774 model of the Bristol. Designed in 1768 and completed in 1775, the Bristol was a 50-gun fourth-rate ship of the line built for the Royal Navy amidst England’s war to suppress the independence movement in its American colonies.

    Image credit:
    British fourth-rate two-decker 50-gun warship: Bristol (detail)
    1774
    George Stockwell, (British, 1729-1805)
    Georgian Model, scale1:48
    The Thomson Collection
    Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto

  • The AGO is home to the Thomson Collection of Ship Models: over 130 examples of miniaturized ships spanning hundreds of years of maritime history.

    One of the most important models in the collection is George Stockwell’s (1729-1805) 1774 model of the Bristol. Designed in 1768 and completed in 1775, the Bristol was a 50-gun fourth-rate ship of the line built for the Royal Navy amidst England’s war to suppress the independence movement in its American colonies.

    Image credit:
    British fourth-rate two-decker 50-gun warship: Bristol (detail)
    1774
    George Stockwell, (British, 1729-1805)
    Georgian Model, scale1:48
    The Thomson Collection
    Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto

  • The AGO is home to the Thomson Collection of Ship Models: over 130 examples of miniaturized ships spanning hundreds of years of maritime history.

    One of the most important models in the collection is George Stockwell’s (1729-1805) 1774 model of the Bristol. Designed in 1768 and completed in 1775, the Bristol was a 50-gun fourth-rate ship of the line built for the Royal Navy amidst England’s war to suppress the independence movement in its American colonies.

    Image credit:
    British fourth-rate two-decker 50-gun warship: Bristol (detail)
    1774
    George Stockwell, (British, 1729-1805)
    Georgian Model, scale1:48
    The Thomson Collection
    Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto

  • The AGO is home to the Thomson Collection of Ship Models: over 130 examples of miniaturized ships spanning hundreds of years of maritime history.

    One of the most important models in the collection is George Stockwell’s (1729-1805) 1774 model of the Bristol. Designed in 1768 and completed in 1775, the Bristol was a 50-gun fourth-rate ship of the line built for the Royal Navy amidst England’s war to suppress the independence movement in its American colonies.

    Image credit:
    British fourth-rate two-decker 50-gun warship: Bristol (detail)
    1774
    George Stockwell, (British, 1729-1805)
    Georgian Model, scale1:48
    The Thomson Collection
    Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto

  • The AGO is home to the Thomson Collection of Ship Models: over 130 examples of miniaturized ships spanning hundreds of years of maritime history.

    One of the most important models in the collection is George Stockwell’s (1729-1805) 1774 model of the Bristol. Designed in 1768 and completed in 1775, the Bristol was a 50-gun fourth-rate ship of the line built for the Royal Navy amidst England’s war to suppress the independence movement in its American colonies.

    Image credit:
    British fourth-rate two-decker 50-gun warship: Bristol (detail)
    1774
    George Stockwell, (British, 1729-1805)
    Georgian Model, scale1:48
    The Thomson Collection
    Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto

  • The AGO is home to the Thomson Collection of Ship Models: over 130 examples of miniaturized ships spanning hundreds of years of maritime history.

    One of the most important models in the collection is George Stockwell’s (1729-1805) 1774 model of the Bristol. Designed in 1768 and completed in 1775, the Bristol was a 50-gun fourth-rate ship of the line built for the Royal Navy amidst England’s war to suppress the independence movement in its American colonies.

    Image credit:
    British fourth-rate two-decker 50-gun warship: Bristol (detail)
    1774
    George Stockwell, (British, 1729-1805)
    Georgian Model, scale1:48
    The Thomson Collection
    Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto

  • The AGO is home to the Thomson Collection of Ship Models: over 130 examples of miniaturized ships spanning hundreds of years of maritime history.

    One of the most important models in the collection is George Stockwell’s (1729-1805) 1774 model of the Bristol. Designed in 1768 and completed in 1775, the Bristol was a 50-gun fourth-rate ship of the line built for the Royal Navy amidst England’s war to suppress the independence movement in its American colonies.

    Image credit:
    British fourth-rate two-decker 50-gun warship: Bristol (detail)
    1774
    George Stockwell, (British, 1729-1805)
    Georgian Model, scale1:48
    The Thomson Collection
    Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto

  • UNTITLED (HARING)
    1997
    acrylic on existing advertising poster

    This large portrait orientation work is a painting done on a black and white poster. The original poster features a photograph of artist Keith Haring.

    In this framed work the height of an average person and 4 feet wide Haring is captured larger than life from the waist up. He is in profile facing left, drawing on a blank area on the left of a subway ad displayed inside a subway station. Haring is a white man with short curly mid-tone hair. He wears glasses and a leather jacket with the word champion on a patch on his left sleeve.

    He is drawing with chalk onto a dark background with his right hand. The drawing resembles both a cowboy hat and a UFO, and he is connecting it to a pyramid with a series of vertical dashes. On the right the ad appears to say, “now roast without risk” above a photo of a dark roast turkey.

    KAWS has painted onto this poster in an uncomplicated cartoonish style. Here he has added a character named “Bendy”. Bendy looms over Haring’s shoulder as he works. Bendy is a yellow creature with a big head with x’s for eyes, commas for nostrils and grey crossbones shaped protrusions. Bendy’s head narrows to a serpentine body which wraps under Haring’s right arm and around his body once and through his open left hand held at waist height as if Haring is grasping onto its tail directly in front of him.

    KAWS has signed the work with the year “97” and a copyright symbol and written what looks to be Keith Haring’s name but only the Keith is visible.

    This work is hung in between two other pieces which are existing advertising posters that KAWS painted over.

  • THE NEWS series
    2017
    acrylic on canvas

    Nine equally sized circle shaped paintings each with a two foot or 50 cm diameter displayed in a grid of three rows of three comprise this work. They use a bright neon palette of pinks, blues, greens and yellows; these are also a typical colour palette in KAWS’s depictions of graphic or cartoon-inspired works. Kaws uses opposing colours to create contrasts.

    These round canvases show layers of motifs used by KAWS. Each canvas is like a closeup of another work, in a way drawing focus to a particular aspect of something larger. They are dynamic and playful. Most of them have black outlined eyeballs that have x’d out pupils which take up half or more of the canvas. A third have eyelids and a couple have eyelashes. There is a tongue and digits of a hand and most have a line or wave of colour at the centre. They do not form an image when viewed all together, rather they present a detail that serves as the focal point for each canvas.

    On each canvas KAWS plays with optical illusions, the 3D effect of which can become apparent for many people if looking at the works with a fixed gaze. This is accomplished through the subtle addition of shadows which are painted on. These shadows create a sense of depth and aspects of the painting appear to pop out from the canvas.

  • GOOD INTENTIONS
    2015
    bronze and paint
    Collection of the Madison Group, Courtesy Corkin Gallery

    GOOD INTENTIONS is a sculpture, presenting two identical figures which stand closely side by side on a low riser against the wall. The one on the right stands at 7 feet tall.The one on the left is smaller reaching the right figure’s waist and hides, childlike, behind it’s leg. They are various shades of matte grey and white.

    The features and style of these figures are those of a character which KAWS has dubbed quote “COMPANION” . With its white cartoonish gloves, oversized shoes, and large-buttoned shorts, it bears an intentional resemblance to Walt Disney Studios mascot Mickey Mouse. The notable exception is the mouse head, which in the “COMPANION” character is replaced with a white “soft skull” and grey crossbones with black X’s for eyes.

    The figures are smooth with slightly rotund torsos and perfectly round legs. They wear brownish grey shorts with two palm sized circles in the front like buttons where suspenders might attach. Their short gloves have a bulge at the cuff, and their hands have three fingers and a thumb. They wear smooth rounded shoes that bulge above the ankle.

    The taller figure on the right stands with its right foot slightly forward. From behind, the smaller figure holds onto the taller figure’s right leg , threading its hand between the taller figure’s legs and leaning in as a child might do. The taller figure twists to hold its right hand behind the smaller figure’s head, shielding it or pulling it close in what could be perceived as a protective gesture.

    These two figures in KAWS’s “COMPANION” character style, share signature traits with other characters in the KAWS Family: Letter X’s etched into their heads instead of eyes and the same X motif on the backs of their gloves and tops of their shoes. Their large heads are in the style of a cartoon skull with two divots for nostrils and knobby “crossbone” protrusions on the sides of their heads. At the bottom of their heads they have 4 rounded bumps with teeth-like gaps.

    In the room around them KAWS‘s “Kimpsons” characters are displayed. These are liberal appropriations of characters from the popular long running tv show The Simpsons which are instantly recognizable. The Kimpsons have X’s for eyes and other traits KAWS has created that make up his signature style.

  • MAN’S BEST FRIEND
    2014
    acrylic on paper

    This work is a massive gridded rectangle of 50 black and white line drawings. The width of the work is about 3 king size mattresses and it is almost one and a half mattresses high nearly reaching the Gallery ceiling. Each framed drawing is 22 inches tall and 18 inches wide. The grid is composed of two dimensional line drawn characters from Peanuts which resemble Snoopy, a familiar comic strip character which is a Black-spotted white beagle and Snoopy‘s friend, a small bird named Woodstock. In each of the close-ups the character’s eyes are replaced by x’s, in KAWS’s trademark X shape. Recognizable in the paintings are: the spiky feathers on the top of Woodstock’s head, Snoopy’s water bowl, the side of Snoopy’s head and floppy letter U shaped ear, Snoopy‘s short pointy tail and back foot as he walks upright, the top of Snoopy‘s head with a Mountie hat on it, his black dot of a nose, and his up-curving-line wide smile and various extreme close-ups of his eyes marked as an X.

    The wall on which this work is hung and two adjacent walls on either side are covered in outsized black lines that look as if they were made with a giant black pen that leapt off of one of the drawings and danced around on the walls with explosive energy. Nearby on either side of the work are sculptures called SHARE and TAKE. On the left is SHARE. SHARE features KAWS’s “Companion” Character standing holding another character dubbed “BFF” which is toy sized and dangles from it’s left hand like a stuffed animal. BFF is bright blue and resembles Sesame Street muppets like Cookie Monster or Elmo. It has bulging eyes atop it’s head with x’s for pupils a round yellow nose and a fuzzy frame like a soft toy. On the right of the grid of drawings, in the opposite corner, the sculpture titled TAKE swaps the two characters; a large BFF stands and clutches a small toy sized COMPANION character to its chest.

  • KAWS in Galleria Italia
    Sculpture in Wood
    KAWS
    born Jersey City, New Jersey, United States, 1974

    These sculptures are situated in Galleria Italia, a city-block-long 4 meter or 14 foot wide east/west thoroughfare in the Gallery building. There is a two storey window wall on the north side and warm brown coloured wood paneling on the south. Although they are placed without barriers the works are not intended to be touched and a recommended distance to be held of 1 meter or three feet is indicated.

    At a short distance from the passageway between the Signy Eaton gallery and the ramp on the western end of Galleria Italia is the first of three playful works called FINAL DAYS, the second is called ALONG THE WAY and the third, AT THIS TIME. All three larger than life size statues feature the character KAWS has dubbed COMPANION.

    The sculptures are solid, and glossed to a high shine with a veneer finish, giving them a silky appearance. They show wood grain and a vertical rectangle assembly much like a hardwood floor.

    The statue figures are smooth with slightly rotund torsos and perfectly round legs. Their short gloves have a bulge at the cuff, and their hands have three fingers and a thumb. They wear smooth rounded shoes that bulge above the ankle. The letter X motif is also carved on the backs of their gloves and tops of their shoes. With its cartoonish gloves, oversized shoes, and large-buttoned shorts, it bears an intentional resemblance to Walt Disney Studios mascot Mickey Mouse. The notable exception is the mouse head, which in the “COMPANION” character is replaced with a “soft skull” and crossbones and carved X’s for eyes. In these sculptures, KAWS’s ”Companion” figures veer toward the human in their poses and their implied pathos.

    The first work diagonally faces us at the left of the walkway near to the window wall.

    FINAL DAYS
    2014
    Afromosia wood

    Here, the character of “COMPANION” is slightly taller than average person standing height and uniquely has a small cottonball shaped tail, and does not wear gloves or shoes or have buttons on its shorts. It steps forward on its left leg with arms extended. Its arms are held wide to the side with palms vertical and fingers slightly curled reaching in joy or perhaps stretching for balance as it moves.

    The next sculpture stands 35 feet further east up against the south wall and faces the windows.

    ALONG THE WAY
    2013
    Afromosia wood

    This 8 feet tall and 6 feet wide statue is wood with a black finish. It has two “COMPANION” figures who stand side by side as one supports the other. The figure on the right is completely limp from mid back up and appears zapped of energy, strength or both; it uses it’s right arm to hold onto the supporting figure’s shoulder. The supporting figure braces the limp figure by leaning its body towards it. The supporting figure also holds it’s left hand on the small of the limp figures back in a consoling gesture.

    30 feet further and centred in the walkway is the last physical statue towards the middle of Galleria Italia. It is placed nearest to the window wall and faces us.

    AT THIS TIME
    2013
    Afromosia wood

    The largest COMPANION character statue is a medium brown wood colour and stands nearly 8 and a half feet tall.

    The figure stands feet together, body slightly bent backwards with its head tilted up and back. Elbows wide, COMPANION’S gloved hands reach up and shroud its face.