Untitled 1983
Untitled 1983
Signed Print
Keith Haring
Woodcut, 1983
Signed Print Edition of 60
H 61cm x W 76cm
Critical Review
This signed woodcut from 1983 is a limited edition of 60 by Keith Haring. Untitled shows two genderless figures falling backwards over one another depicted in the artist’s highly recognisable linear style. The figures are rendered with thick, rounded red lines and finer black squiggly lines fill their bodies and the surrounding space to form a frenzied, all-over composition.
Haring’s print strikes a balance between pattern and figuration in such a way that recalls the art of Australian Aborigines, something that the artist claimed to be unaware of. The use of flat, block colours further emphasises the abstract surface pattern of the image, with the thick, bright red lines set in contrast to the black linear pattern. Untitled 1983 has a compulsive quality that fills out across the canvas that contrasts to Haring’s typical use of simplified form and block colour.
Untitled bursts with a sense of energy and dynamism that is characteristic of Haring’s work throughout his entire career. Haring was concerned with the idea of the democratisation of art and used his positive visual language as a form of activism. Seeking to dissolve the boundaries between fine art, political activism and popular culture, Haring’s works like Untitled 1983 bridge the gap between high art and mass consumerism.
