Apocalypse 5 by Keith Haring

Always politically conscious, Haring used his fame and talent to heighten awareness of AIDS, apartheid and the crack cocaine epidemic, and became involved with several children’s charities. In 1988, shortly after he was diagnosed with AIDS, he collaborated with the Beat writer William Burroughs to create the Apocalypse portfolio. Haring’s provocative imagery and Burroughs’s stream-of-consciousness poetry create a vision of the HIV virus as a harbinger of the end of the world.  He died in 1990.

Created

1988

Medium

Silkscreen

Size

38 x 38"

Presentation

Edition of 90

Description

Apocalypse by Keith Haring

When the late renowned artist Keith Haring was diagnosed with AIDS in 1988, he collaborated with author William S. Burroughs on this Apocalypse series, which offers an insight into Haring’s personal struggle with the disease.  He died in 1990.

He created the Apocalypse series along with Willliam S. Burroughs who wrote the text that accompanied each of the 10 panels.

Page 5
Skyscrapers scrape rents of blue and white paint from the sky, shredding, peeling, nitrous ochres and red eat through bridges, which fall into the rivers splashing colors across – my back I always hear – piers, streets AMOK art – Hurry up please, its time – floods inorganic molds – Times winged chariot hurrying – stirring passion of – near. Closing time gentlemen – metal and glass steel – these our actors as I foretold you – girders writhe – actors frantically packing in theatrical – mineral lust – hotels… are all spirits.

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