The Valley Page 2
The Valley Page 2
Signed Print
Keith Haring
Etching, 1989
Signed Print Edition of 80
H 25cm x W 23cm
Critical Review
This signed etching from 1989 is a limited edition of 80 from Keith Haring’s The Valley series. The Valley Page 2 shows an intricately rendered line drawing of a fictional flying machine next to an almost-nude boy. Accompanying text from William S. Burrough’s novel The Western Lands from 1987, the narrative explains that this flying machine was made of ‘lizard, snake and fish skins sewn to a frame of light wood’.
The Valley series marked a new direction in Haring’s visual language that continued until his untimely death in 1990 at the age of 31. Alongside his Apocalypse series (1988), this series introduces stylistic shifts of more complex compositions and characters such as jesters, masks, skills and martyrs. Completed two years after Haring’s own AIDS diagnosis, The Valley Page 2 is indicative of the artist’s preoccupation with hellish narratives and death.
The ominous texts by William S. Burroughs are copied by hand on sixteen sheets of tracing paper, which were photo-etched onto copper plates and printed in red ink. This print tells the story of a man who took all of his life to build this flying machine that would help save the people from the hellish Valley.
