VOCABLE Du 11 juillet au 4 septembre 2019 • 31
- But art institutions, especially museums, didn’t
know how to react to these upstarts and their
work. Neither did critics: some were supportive,
many were snide (Time’s Robert Hughes carica-
tured Haring as “Keith Boring”). There was a sense
among the stuffy that these young artists were
not to be taken seriously, and Haring’s likable
painting style meant that his art, though loved
by the public, was not “high” enough for the elite.
Plus, he collaborated with others too often; he was
too commercial; he would keep banging on about
politics and safe sex.
RENEWED INTEREST
- To d ay, though, Haring paintings sell for mil-
lions. In 2016, Sotheby’s sold four Haring can-
vases, including the wonderful The Last Rainfor-
est, which he painted in 1989 when he knew he
was dying. The sale price was over £4m. And
there’s a renewed interest in the artistic era in
which Haring operated – that collaborative time
in New York where pop and rap and art met and
mixed, a time that started in the mid-to-late 70s
and ended, in essence, with a trio of deaths: first
Warhol in 1987, then Basquiat in 1988 and fi-
nally, Haring, in February 1990. In 2017, there
was a huge and highly successful Basquiat ex-
hibition, in London; around the same time,
MoM A in New York put on a show based around
Club 57, a small nightclub where artists and
musicians and performers would hang out in
the late 70s and early 80s. LEGACY
- Haring died on 16 February 1990. During his
lifetime, he had almost 50 one-man shows. He
painted 45 murals. Since his death, his foundation
has supported hundreds of youth, community,
art, LGBT, safe sex and planned-parenthood pro-
jects. His work is held by MoM A, the Whitney,
the LA County Museum of Art, the Andy Warhol
Museum in Pittsburgh. And many, many people
own a Keith Haring badge. l
rallies. Sometimes it was subtler: some of his
later works, when he knew he was dying, featured
broken birds, daggers, nails, nooses, blood. Always,
it was attractive, with an exuberance and joy that
spoke to people of all ages, all backgrounds. That
universal quality draws us to Haring’s work – but
can lead some to think that his art is superficial,
and easy to achieve. It isn’t. REAL-LIFE ART
- Haring lived and worked in New York from
1978 until his death, aged 31, from an Aids-relat-
ed illness. In his final few years, he was invited
all over the world to make work, and if you want
to see some real-life Keith Haring art, you still
can. There is a mural in Pisa, on the side of the
church of Sant’Antonio, which he made in the
last year of his life. There is one at the Carmine
public swimming pool on Clarkson Street in
Greenwich Village, New York, painted by Haring
in one day in 1987. There is public work by Har-
ing in Philadelphia, San Francisco, Antwerp,
Berlin, Paris, Melbourne; on hospitals, at schools
(often made with children), in an LGBT com-
munity services centre.
SOCIAL AWA RE N E S S
- His work is timeless, but it is rooted in
its time. The Reaganite 1980s have parallels
with today, with an anti-immigration, anti-
union, pro-guns, anti-abortion, go-USA
“entertainer” president in the White House.
Back then, young artists reacted, shaking
up the art establishment. A new post-War-
hol crew that included Haring, Scharf and
Jean-Michel Basquiat suddenly emerged,
making work that referenced what was
around them: clubbing, rap, street art, tel-
evision, high and low culture. They grabbed
attention, shows and sales.
rally large political gathering, demonstration / subtle
delicate, refined / to feature to include, comprise /
dagger small knife / nail a small metal spike with a head
used for fastening / noose circle tied in one end of a rope
(here, for hanging people) / background origins, family,
sociocultural milieu / to draw, drew, drawn here, to
attract / to achieve to accomplish.- illness medical condition / side wall / Antwerp large
city in Belgium / LGBT = lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender / community services centre local social
centre. - awareness consciousness (of a problem/situation) /
timeless eternal / to be rooted to have its origins in /
Reaganite ref to the politics of former U.S. president
Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) / anti-union against worker
syndicates / abortion termination of a pregnancy /
entertainer here, ref. to Reagan being a Hollywood actor
before entering politics and Trump being a TV reality show
host / to shake, shook, shaken up here, to change,
revolutionise / crew group / to reference to allude to,
refer to / to grab to capture, seize, here, attract / show
exhibition.
6. upstart just arrived, ambitious / supportive giving
support and solidarity, encouraging / snide denigrating,
disparaging, critical / boring uninteresting, dull / stuffy
formal, pretentious, here, from the art establishment /
l i k(e)a b l e accessible, generally pleasing / high here, noble
/ to bang on about to talk about a lot / safe protected.
7. though however / canvas here, painting / rainforest
tropical forest /
mid-to-late second half of / in essence essentially,
basically / huge major / MoMA = Museum of Modern Art /
to put, put, put on to organise / performer singer, artist,
actor, entertainer / to hang, hung, hung out to spend
time, here, to frequent, go to regularly.- legacy heritage / lifetime here, career / one-man
devoted entirely to one artist / to support to help
financially / planned-parenthood family planning / to
hold, held, held to have in one’s possession, (...his work
can be seen in...) / to own to possess.
Comment parler d'un
époque passée?
back then (§ 5) à cette époque
On peut également utiliser :
in those days
in the good old days
in days gone by
in bygone daysSUR LE BOUT DE LA LANGUETéléchargez l’appli Vocable offerte à nos abonnés! http://www.vocable.fr/applimobileCrack is Wack by Keith Haring, a two-sided mural on 128th Street in New York. (Robert Wright/The New York Times)His work
is
timeless,
but it is
rooted in
its time.
(Haring Foundation / Collection
Noirmontartproduction, Paris)(Keith Haring / Pixabay)
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