Untitled
Keith Haring
Description
Subject Matter:
Keith Haring, the innovative artist who combined his graffiti art aesthetic with a socially conscious attitude, created this work as part of The Fertility Suite. Haring developed distinctive pictograms that recurred in various iterations in his work. His most famous pictograms were the radiant baby and the barking dog. Through this visual language, Haring could subvert the dominant modes of communication, and appeal to the masses on social issues like the AIDS crisis, nuclear war and sexuality.
In this work, Haring examines the weight of procreation. The parent figure is much larger than the children and is nearly crushing them. They are trying to hold the parent up but the weight is too great. The Venus symbol (the symbol for women) is situated around the figure's stomach area. Because the symbol is the same color as the background, it is unclear whether it is superimposed on the figure or the symbol is removed from the figure. This suggests that the decision to have children is rife with societal pressures, but it also causes what seems to be literal pressure on the resulting progeny.
EC 2017
Physical Description:
A large figure in orange with yellow polka dots crouches over five small pink figures who are holding the orange figure up. The symbol for women is drawn in green inside the large orange figure. The background is a flourscent green and the ground is yellow.
EC 2017
Usage Rights:
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