Apocalypse 2
Apocalypse 2
Signed Print
Keith Haring
£7,000-£10,500 VALUE (EST.)
$13,000-$19,000 VALUE (EST.)
$12,000-$18,000 VALUE (EST.)
¥60,000-¥90,000 VALUE (EST.)
€8,000-€12,000 VALUE (EST.)
$70,000-$100,000 VALUE (EST.)
¥1,130,000-¥1,700,000 VALUE (EST.)
$8,500-$13,000 VALUE (EST.)
This estimate blends recent public auction records with our own private sale data and network demand.
Screenprint, 1988
Signed Print Edition of 90
H 97cm x W 97cm
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Auction Results
| Auction Date | Auction House | Artwork | Hammer Price | Return to Seller | Buyer Paid |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April 2022 | Dorotheum, Vienna - Austria | Apocalypse 2 - Signed Print | |||
| September 2021 | Sotheby's Online - United Kingdom | Apocalypse 2 - Signed Print | |||
| July 2021 | Christie's New York - United States | Apocalypse 2 - Signed Print | |||
| June 2021 | Germann Auctions - Switzerland | Apocalypse 2 - Signed Print | |||
| September 2016 | Sotheby's London - United Kingdom | Apocalypse 2 - Signed Print | |||
| July 2008 | Christie's New York - United States | Apocalypse 2 - Signed Print | |||
| June 2004 | Christie's London - United Kingdom | Apocalypse 2 - Signed Print |
Meaning & Analysis
Keith Haring’s signed screen print Apocalypse 2, taken from his Apocalypse series (1988), is a limited edition of 90. In this print Haring portrays a vision of war and terror with his harsh gestural lines and bright splashes of colour that represents the atrocities of the AIDS epidemic.
Showing a perplexing scene of dystopian chaos, solid, heavy lines are used by Haring to depict the densely populated scene. Thick strokes, splatters of primary colour and harsh gestural marks produce jolts of violence and dynamism. Haring’s phallocentric universe is shown in a state of war, emphasised by explosions, collisions, army vehicles and menacing humanoids falling from the sky.
Apocalypse 2 directly relates death and danger to sexuality and promiscuity. Phalluses in the image are conceptualised as instruments of war, shooting at humanoids and causing destruction. As an adolescent, Haring witnessed the traumatising events of the Vietnam War on television and undoubtedly this had a lasting effect on his artwork. The dismaying realities of the AIDS epidemic, and Haring’s subsequent diagnosis in 1988, are depicted in this post-apocalyptic scene as acts of total violence and devastation, likened to the wars that Haring witnessed on TV in his youth.
As with Apocalypse 1, Haring uses collage to reproduce and duplicate Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. Haring undermines the cerebral nature of fine art through defacement and duplication. In this print the Mona Lisa has been cut up and vandalised by black felt lines. As such, her beauty is wholly perverted. Just as his good friend Jean-Michel Basquiat had done before him, Haring used his unique graffiti style to erode boundaries between the public and the world of high art.
