Urban Summer
Street and Studio
From Basquiat to Séripop
25 June – 10 October 2010
Keith Haring: 1978-1982
The early experimental years
28 May – 19 September 2010
Museumsplatz 1, 1070 Vienna
Street and StudioFrom Basquiat to Séripop
25 June – 10 October 2010
… and the streets look really good to me, they look like art … I wanted to paint the town red, paint the town black.
Jean-Michel Basquiat, Downtown 81 (1981)
With its major summer exhibition Street and Studio the Kunsthalle Wien brings the rough style of the street into the exhibition hall. Urbanity and mobility characterize a contemporary generation of artists who regard the metropolis both as their source of inspiration and means of expression: the US painter Jean-Michel Basquiat, whose work constitutes a landmark for various forms of painting and video art relating to urban or suburban cultures, provides the center of gravity for the show. From this starting-point, the presentation unfolds a network of positions that share a vitality informed by the street and urbanity and spans from the results of Basquiat’s productive collaboration with other artists such as Andy Warhol, Francesco Clemente, or Keith Haring to works by younger artists like Rita Ackermann or Séripop.
Having never ceased to pervade pop culture since its emergence, this subversive pictorial language tells of the quest for identity, political responsibility, the commercialization of public space, and the fight for survival caused by social injustice.
The show centers on both art-historical key figures such as Blek le Rat, Jenny Holzer, or Sophie Calle and contemporary artists from Kader Attia and Brad Downey, Christian Eisenberger, Basim Magdy, and Ari Marcopoulos to Evan Roth, Séripop, and Rita Vitorelli, who are represented by new works created for the occasion.
List of artists: Rita Ackermann, Eric Andersen, Charlie Ahearn, Kader Attia, Banksy, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Dara Birnbaum, Blek le Rat, Sophie Calle, Francesco Clemente, Jane Dickson, Brad Downey, Christian Eisenberger, Futura, Dani Gal, Ingo Giezendanner (GRRRR), Shaun Gladwell, Keith Haring, Jenny Holzer, Mark Jenkins, Leopold Kessler, Lady Pink, Sol LeWitt, Basim Magdy, Ari Marcopoulos, miz JUSTICE, Ramm:ell:zee, Robin Rhode, Evan Roth, Séripop , Rita Vitorelli, Andy Warhol
Curators: Cathérine Hug, Thomas Mießgang
Keith Haring: 1978-1982
The early experimental years
28 May – 19 September 2010
The public has a right to art. Art is for everybody
Keith Haring
The American artist Keith Haring ranks among the most popular in the world. Twenty years after his death, the Kunsthalle Wien’s solo exhibition offers the opportunity to discover his rarely shown early work, created between 1978 and 1982, when Haring left Pittsburgh for New York and began his ascent from art student to international Pop Art star. His move to New York and immersion in downtown culture informed and inspired his language as an artist, his private life, and his open homosexuality.
With its emphasis on works on paper, the show presents drawings and sketches, but also includes videos, flyers, posters, photographs and subway drawings, as well as word collages, texts, and diaries. It offers an impression of the artist’s manifold maturing process and shows Keith Haring as a philosopher and untiring initiator of political activities, performances and group exhibitions, reflecting his collaboration with other artists.
Keith Haring, born in Reading, Pennsylvania on May 4, 1958, lived and worked in New York, where he died on February 16, 1990 of AIDS-related complications.
Curated by Raphaela Platow (Director and Chief Curator of the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati)
Supporting Curator at Kunsthalle Wien: Synne Genzmer
This groundbreaking exhibition of Keith Haring’s early work is co-organized with the Contemporary Arts Center (Cincinnati, Ohio/USA) and will travel there after the Kunsthalle Wien.
www.contemporaryartscenter.org
Infoline +43-1-52189-33, www.kunsthallewien.at
Museumsplatz 1, 1070 Vienna
Daily 10 a.m. – 7 p.m., Thu 10 a.m. – 9 p.m.
public transport: U2 / U3 Station “Volkstheater”, U2 Station “Museumsquartier”
Information and photographic material: Claudia Bauer, KUNSTHALLE wien, office: Museumsplatz 1, A-1070 Vienna
Tel.: +43-1-521 89-1222, fax: +43-1-521 89-1217, e-mail: presse@kunsthallewien.at
