HARING, KEITH
1958 Kutztown, PA/USA–1990 New York

Title: Totem.
Date: 1989.
Technique: Colour woodcut on 3 japanese sheets.
Depiction Size: 182.5 x 56 cm.
Sheet Size: 192 x 88.5 cm.
Notation: Signed, dated and numbered.
Number: 16/60.
Frame: Framed. Not examined out of the frame .



Provenance:
- - Private Collection Hessen


Literature:
- Littmann, Klaus (ed.): Keith Haring – Editions on Paper 1982–1990/The Print Works, Ostfildern-Ruit 1997, pp. 158ff.



- Profound symbolism featuring key elements from Haring’s oeuvre

- A rare, large-format woodcut with a captivating spatial presence

- The work is also held in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York



Pop Art Meets Activism

Keith Haring is a key figure of New York street art in the 1980s. With his unmistakable, highly simplified, line-based figures, he addressed sociopolitical issues such as consumerism, racism, and the immunodeficiency syndrome AIDS, from which Haring himself died in 1990 at the age of just 31. In a period marked by major political and social upheaval during the late 1980s, Haring regarded art as a powerful vehicle for social change.



Reduction as Language: Haring’s Universal Visual World

Haring’s visual language is characterized by his signature figures, stripped of individual features and personal identity. His motivation for this reduction lay in the universal readability of his art, leading him to design his figures in the simplest possible form. The symbolism in his works often draws upon cultural gestures, such as the embrace as a symbol of human closeness or the heart as a sign of love. Alongside themes of love and unity, spirituality also occupies a central place in Haring’s oeuvre as an overarching principle of life.



The Symbolism of the Totem Series

Within his visual worlds, Haring condensed a multitude of information, fully utilizing the space available to him. This is also evident in the present work from the Totem series, realized in Germany. Drawing upon the traditions of Indigenous peoples of North America, Haring layers his characteristic figures and visual motifs tightly upon one another, thereby creating his own interpretation of a totem pole.

While he adopts the compositional structure of the totem pole, Haring chooses the form of an abstracted human silhouette and, rather than filling it with animal motifs, populates it with the central themes of his work: spirituality, unity, and love. In doing so, he partially draws upon symbolism that is thousands of years old. Not only does the form of the totem—with its folded arms—evoke ancient Egyptian sarcophagi, but the sun depicted in the head area also references the ancient symbol of the sun as an emblem of spiritual power.

In the chest area of the figure—close to the heart—two figures approach one another in a joyful embrace, while the base of the lower body is formed by two supporting figures. The three-part series comprises a polychrome wooden relief, a monochrome wall relief in concrete (Lot 43), and the present two-color woodcut. One example of this woodcut is also held in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York



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#Keith Haring #Street Art #Comic #Graffiti #USA #Post-War Art #Print #Figure / Figures #Colour woodcut #1980s #Prints.







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