KEITH HARING, CHOCOLATE BUDDHA 3, CHOCOLATE BUDDHA SERIES, SIGNED LITHOGRAPH, EDITION OF 90, 1989
Chocolate Buddha 3 is a print from Keith Haring’s Chocolate Buddha series (1989) that shows an object resembling the artist’s ‘devil sperm’ motif and some intertwining stems that cut through the composition vertically. The central subject is rendered in thick, brown outlines to form a simplified shape and is set against a pink backdrop of loosely drawn hieroglyphs.
Completed the year before Haring’s death, this series amalgamates the artist’s clear-line figurative style with more complex patterns to form highly abstracted images. Recalling styles of the ancient world such as Eastern Mandalas and Australian Aboriginal art, the Chocolate Buddha series also shows influence from the European Modernists such as Miro, Klee and Matisse. This is notable from the way in which the prints focus on flat, richly coloured shapes and patterns that play out across the image surface.
Chocolate Buddha 3 includes the ‘devil sperm’ motif, injecting the print with a focus on the threat of male homosexuality. This motif is seen in many other later works like the Apocalypse series (1988), where Haring directly correlates sexuality with death in his depiction of enormous horned sperm, a demoniacal personification of death in relation to the AIDS virus. In the later stage of his artistic career, themes around sex and HIV/AIDS dominated his work, just as it dominated Haring’s personal life after his own AIDS diagnosis in 1988.
Read more about Chocolate Buddha by Keith Haring.
ABOUT KEITH HARING
Known for his bold graphic style and playful sense of humour, Keith Haring is one of the most influential and adored artists of the 20th century.
Born in Pennsylvania, in 1958, Haring was a talented draughtsman as a child and developed his cartoonish style at the hands of his father and the work of Walt Disney and Dr Seuss. However it would take some time before he realised he could marry this kind of drawing with being a fine artist. Upon graduating from high school he enrolled in a commercial art school before realising he had little interest in pursuing a career as an illustrator or graphic designer. After dropping out of college he joined the hippie movement and hitchhiked across the country where he made anti-Nixon t-shirts to pay for food and Grateful Dead tickets. Learn more about Keith Haring.
