Keith Haring: The Political Line had its US premiere at the de Young and is the first major Haring show on the West Coast in nearly two decades. Many of the works are on loan from the Keith Haring Foundation, New York, with supplemental loans from public and private collections. Several pieces have not been published or on public view since the artist’s death, in 1990.

It's your last chance to catch Keith Haring: The Political Line at the de Young Museum in San Francisco! The wonderful exhibit closes on February 16th, 2015

"Time, never especially kind to the living, can be particularly cruel to the dead, hastily ushering most into historical obscurity and bestowing on the few a posterity that rarely resembles the truth of their being. Keith Haring was a thief of time, stealing so much from it in his sadly abbreviated life, managing more with his work than most and somehow accomplishing even more with his idle time. And so, when he was done, it must make some sense that there was plenty to take away; not simply a body of work that was both prolific in its production and profound in its influence, but a mass of doubt and misunderstanding that would come from the disjunction of such quantity over such brevity. As one of the first and foremost crossover artists of his generation, it would seem that he should have been rapidly lionized and lauded in death to some permanent place in the pantheon of greatness. He was not." —Carlo McCormick in the December, 2014 issue of Juxtapoz Magazine, on sale now.

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Keith Haring: The Political Line had its US premiere at the de Young and is the first major Haring show on the West Coast in nearly two decades. Many of the works are on loan from the Keith Haring Foundation, New York, with supplemental loans from public and private collections. Several pieces have not been published or on public view since the artist’s death, in 1990.

The Political Line features more than 130 works, including large-scale paintings on tarpaulins and canvases, sculptures, and a number of the artist’s subway drawings. The exhibition creates a narrative that explores Haring’s responses to nuclear proliferation, racial inequality, the excesses of capitalism, environmental degradation, and other issues of deep personal concern.

Haring’s work has long been a part of San Francisco’s visual culture. He created works for diverse venues in San Francisco during his lifetime, including murals for DV8, a club once located in the South of Market neighborhood, and a huge, multi-panel painting for the South of Market Childcare Center (also known as the Saint Patrick's Daycare Center). Haring’s outdoor sculpture Untitled (Three Dancing Figures) (1989), located at Third and Howard Streets, is a prominent feature of Moscone Convention Center, and his triptych altarpiece The Life of Christ (1990) is installed in the AIDS Chapel at Grace Cathedral.

Keith Haring: The Political Line

de Young Museum

San Francisco, CA



November 8th - February 16th, 2014