“Keith Haring: The Political Line” opens at The Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris

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PARIS.- Citizens of Humanity announces the exhibition, The Political Line — one of the most extensive Keith Haring (1958-1990) retrospectives to date. The Political Line will reveal the importance of Haring’s art as visual activism, highlighting the diversity of his socio-political iconography throughout his career. The exhibition will open at The Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and at the art space, CENTQUATRE, April 19 through August 18, 2013. CENTQUATRE will feature Keith Haring’s large-format works, and one of his most epic, “The Ten Commandments,” painted in 1985. The ten monumental panels, twenty-five feet high, evoke Biblical themes radiant with red and yellow metaphors of sex, violence, and power. Over 250 pictures on canvas and tarpaulins, subway wall works, including twenty large-format pieces will be on view, celebrating the Haring humanities. Committed to supporting art initiatives from around the world, Citizens of Humanity will present a special children’s program concurrent with the exhibition.

Keith Haring was one of the most famous artists of his time, and even today his inimitable style, with its repertoire of emblematic signs, remains familiar to all. Beginning with Documenta 7 in 1982, he exhibited alongside Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, Jenny Holzer and Daniel Buren, as well in museums and biennials around the world.

Consciously choosing the street and public spaces to make contact with the widest possible audience, he fought indefatigably against racism, capitalism and violence and injustice in all their forms, especially apartheid in South Africa, the threat of nuclear war, the destruction of the environment, homophobia and the AIDS epidemic (an Aids victim himself, before he died he set up a charitable foundation to help those affected by it). The layout of the exhibition provides an account of his critical stances.

Haring studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Endowed with a genius for line, this virtuoso draughtsman – even as a child he drew endlessly – was rapid, tireless and enormously prolific, with music playing constantly as he worked. He used all kinds of surfaces and his resort to contemporary media saw him begin marketing spin-offs in his Pop Shop in 1985.

The political messages and ideas he communicated were not only a part of his legacy; they have had a very real influence on other artists and society. His “subway drawings” paintings, drawings and sculptures speak of social justice, individual freedom and change. A subversive, militant Pop icon, Haring was a man of commitment all his life: even when very young he was already driven by an urge to change the world. Paris was unquestionably the place for this major exhibition. After taking part in the Figuration Libre France/USA show presented in 1984 at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, together with Robert Combas, Hervé Di Rosa, Jean-Michel Basquiat and others, Haring became very attached to the city and often stayed, worked and exhibited there.