Keith Haring

The “Keith Haring” exhibition offers an important opportunity to get to know the American artist universally recognised as one of the fathers of street art. Haring spent a brief spell in Pisa in 1989 to paint the famous Tuttomondo mural. This monumental painting, unique in Italy, occupies an area of 180 square metres on a façade of the convent of Sant’Antonio and is still seen today as his artistic testament.

On display for the first time in Europe will be more than 170 artworks from the Nakamura Keith Haring Collection, the personal collection of Kazuo Nakamura kept at the museum dedicated to the artist in Japan.

The exhibition traces Haring’s artistic career from start to finish and includes a number of series, such as Apocalypse (1988) and Flowers, (1990), large works on canvas, such as Untitled (1985), and investigates his wide range of expressive techniques – painting, drawing, sculpture, video, murals, public and commercial art. It opens with his well-known and acclaimed early Subway Drawings, 1981-1983 and ends with the screen prints entitled The Blueprint Drawings, his final collection on paper, published in 1990, a month before his death. 

Haring was always committed to raising public awareness through his work of issues such as nuclear energy, the technological age, environmental protection, widespread racism, drug use and AIDS prevention. He always tried to find a way to blend what is recognised as art with everyday life.

Undisputed symbols of 80’s Pop culture and art, Haring’s artworks are also familiar to and known by those who know nothing about him: his stylised and moving figures, his hearts, his dogs and his signs are part of our collective imagination.