NGV looks to NYC for summer blockbuster featuring Haring and Basquiat

The National Gallery of Victoria is going back to the ‘80s this summer with a joint exhibition of New York luminaries Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Melburnians may be familiar with Haring’s jovial mural on Wellington St at the site of the former Collingwood Technical School. Painted in 1984, it’s one of only 31 of Haring’s murals known to have survived to today.

Keith Haring’s ‘Untitled’ from 1982,

Keith Haring | Jean-Michel Basquiat: Crossing Lines marks yet another double-bill blockbuster for the NGV, which has had enormous success with the format since Andy Warhol – Ai Wei Wei in 2016.

NGV director Tony Ellwood said the exhibition would give ‘‘a unique scholarly context for [the artists’] rise to prominence and lasting influence’’.

‘‘Haring and Basquiat respectively created powerful and enduring bodies of work rich with symbolic meaning and emotionally-charged political commentary,’’ he said.

The summer exhibition will feature more than 300 works including from Haring and Basquiat’s very first exhibitions as well as collaborations with the likes of Andy Warhol, Grace Jones and Madonna.

The pair burnt fast and bright: Haring died at 31 of AIDS-related illness while Basquiat passed away at just 27 from a heroin overdose.

More to come

New York graffiti artist Keith Haring painting his mural on the wall of the Collingwood Technical School in Johnson Street, Collingwood in 1984.Credit:Mike Martin

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