Accession Number
1991/1.137

Title
Art Attack

Artist(s)
Keith Haring

Object Creation Date
1988

Medium & Support
screenprint on oak panel

Dimensions
30 in x 30 in x 2 in (76.2 cm x 76.2 cm x 5.08 cm);30 in x 29 15/16 in x 2 in (76.2 cm x 76.04 cm x 5.08 cm)

Credit Line
Gift of Margaret I. McIntosh

Label copy
March 28, 2009
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
Even as a young student in New York, Haring rejected what he saw as the elitist conventions of the gallery and museum systems. Taking a cue from the city’s burgeoning hip-hop and graffiti culture, Haring’s bold and unique visual language first gained visibility on the walls of New York City subway stations before quickly gaining international recognition. Part of a generation of New York artists ravaged by AIDS (he himself was diagnosed in 1988), Haring used his art as a tool for social activism. From the early subway drawings and mural paintings to innumerable t-shirts, buttons, and prints, Haring was dedicated to the idea that art should exist in and engage with the world at large.

Subject matter
An example of Keith Haring's signature style in which figures are rendered in a crisp, clean single line. Two central figures of indeterminate sex engage in a form of connection/penetration evoking both a sense of movement and the erotic. Created the year Haring was diagnosed with AIDS (from which he would die two years later), this work retains Haring's simplicity of line while the imagery alludes to deeper themes of eroticism, sexuality, and danger.

Physical Description
Oak panel with screen print; signed K.Haring 88 along lower right edge.

Primary Object Classification
Print

Collection Area
Modern and Contemporary

Rights
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please visit http://umma.umich.edu/request-image for more information and to fill out the online Image Rights and Reproductions Request Form.

Keywords
Minimal
New York
abstraction
graffiti
homosexuality
modern and contemporary art
sexuality