At the Reggia di Monza the traveling exhibition dedicated to Keith Haring

From September 30, 2022 to January 29, 2023, the Orangery of the Reggia di Monza will host the exhibition Keith Haring. Radiant Vision, a traveling exhibition project made possible thanks to Pan Art Connections, produced by General Service and Security, GCR and Saga MDS in collaboration with the Villa Reale and Parco di Monza Consortium; artistic and production direction is by Beside Studio. After the four American stops (in Missouri, New York, Florida and Pennsylvania), the traveling exhibition arrives in Italy.

More than one hundred works by Keith Haring from a private collection, including lithographs, silkscreens, drawings on paper and posters, intended to illustrate the entire artistic activity of the most famous street artist of the 1980s, highlighting the different aspects of his short life and production, including drawings in the subway and street art, exhibitions in some of New York’s most famous galleries, and the Pop Shop.

In the exhibition, visitors will recognize the iconic Radiant Babies, which permeated American culture in the 1980s and became emblematic symbols of the era. The exhibition project is intended as a tribute to the artist, an advocate for nuclear de-escalation, civil rights, child welfare and AIDS awareness.

The exhibition is divided into nine sections: fromIconography, in which the story is told of how Haring became fascinated with the study of symbols, giving rise to his visual lexicon (barking dogs, radiant children, smiling faces, scarred men, dancing figures, pulsating crowds, glowing televisions and UFOs). It then recounts Haring’s beginnings and life in New York City, where he moved in 1978 to study at the School of Visual Arts; the Social Justice section will feature works such as Untitled (Apartheid), a two-panel painting depicting a large black figure struggling to free himself from the noose of the white oppressor. One section is devoted to work done with young people: on view is the Kalish Suite, a group of eleven etchings representing the joint effort of Haring and Sean Kalish, an elementary school child who attended the Pop Shop and showed an early talent for dynamic, linear drawings similar to Haring’s. The two struck up a friendship and together created this suite of images. Also on display is Medusa Head, the largest print Haring ever made, more than two meters long and nearly five feet high. The work was created in collaboration with Danish printmaker Borch Jensen, who, after meeting Haring at a dinner party, invited the artist to experiment with his newly installed, three-meter-long printing press. The work is a modern retelling of the Greek myth of Medusa, a winged woman whose hair was composed of snakes that could turn bystanders into stone. For Haring, who witnessed the deadly effects of AIDS in 1986 but had not yet been diagnosed, the mythical monster was an appropriate symbol of the terrifying disease that quickly killed his young friends.

The exhibition is curated by Katharine J Wright.

For info: www.reggiadimonza.it

Hours: Tuesday through Sunday 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Closed Mondays.

Tickets (including audio guide): Full 14 euros, reduced 12 euros. Combined with ticket to the Villa Reale in Monza 10 euros.

Photo © Allan Tannenbaum / sohoblues.com.

At the Reggia di Monza the traveling exhibition dedicated to Keith Haring

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