Can We Finally Take Keith Haring Out of His Time Capsule?

At the Brooklyn Museum’s current retrospective of Keith Haring’s early work, titled Keith Haring: 1978–1982, you can view what may be the earliest video of the artist at work. In Haring Paints Himself into a Corner, Haring literally paints himself into a corner as music by the cult band Devo blares in the background. Friend and fellow artist Kenny Scharf remembers seeing the film being made and Haring painting lines “to the beat of the music, almost like a dance.” It sounds almost like an artsy version of That ‘70s Show, complete with period soundtrack. But, as Jade Dellinger has remarked, Devo’s first album, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!, “became a rallying call and a conduit for the like-minded to meet” in that year of 1978. Haring is so much a part of his time and, because of his advocacy and death, the frightened, confused, early AIDS era, the temptation to take him out of the time capsule and gently return him is often irresistible. By looking at the early Haring, however, Keith Haring: 1978–1982 shows how the artist and his spirit live on today. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Can We Finally Take Keith Haring Out of His Time Capsule?"

[Image: Keith Haring (American, 1958–1990). Flyer for Des Refusés at Westbeth Painters Space, New York City, February 10, 1981 (detail). Acrylic and ink on paper. Collection Keith Haring Foundation. © Keith Haring Foundation.]

[Many thanks to the Brooklyn Museum for the image above and for other press materials related to the exhibition Keith Haring: 1978–1982, which runs through July 8, 2012.]

Out in the Open: Sexual Differences in Art

"Telling the history of art without the history of gay people is like telling the history of slavery without mentioning black people," says David C. Ward, curator of Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC. "There's been an entire history hiding in plain sight." In Hide/Seek, art history comes out of the closet and out into the open, working specifically in the area of American portraiture to give a general impression of the role of persons of sexual difference in the art we already know and love. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Out in the Open."

Dream Weaver: The Art of Brion Gysin

“Brion Gysin was a true subversive,” writes Laura Hoptman in Brion Gysin: Dream Machine, the text accompanying New York City’s New Museum’s exhibition of the same name. “Gay, stateless, polyglot, he had no family, no clique, no fixed profession, and, often, no fixed address. He claimed no religion, and no credo, save that we human beings were put on this earth with the ultimate goal of leaving it.” When Brion Gysin reached that ultimate goal in 1986, he left behind a tangled legacy—the natural consequence of the fluidity of his life and his creativity, both of which knew no borders. This first detailed study of Gysin’s life, art, and lasting influence, Brion Gysin: Dream Machine shows how he wove a life-long dream that many of today’s artists have merged with their own. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Dream Weaver."

[Image: Brion Gysin with Dreamachine at Musée des Art Décoratifs, Paris, 1962. © Harold Chapman/Topham/The Image Works]

[Many thanks to Merrell Publishing for providing me with a review copy of Brion Gysin: Dream Machine, the catalogue to the New Museum exhibition that runs through October 3, 2010.]