Keith Haring - New Now New York Tuesday, September 28, 2021 | Phillips
  • Executed a year before his death in 1990, Keith Haring’s Pyramid features the artist’s iconic dancing characters gyrating with abandon on a shining three-dimensional surface. Following his AIDS diagnosis in 1988, Haring concerned himself with the longevity of art and what his practice would leave behind. He returned to pyramids consistently, as their iconography became a touchstone of his lifelong fascination with hieroglyphics and a meditation on the enduring qualities of art. While advocating for AIDS awareness and continuing to make street art around the United States, Haring produced many iterations of the present work; ranging from flat pyramid cutouts to the fully three-dimensional variation seen here, they are unified by their texture and quintessential patterning. Marrying abstraction, figuration, and political advocacy, Pyramid is an enduring artifact of Haring’s practice and the staying power of his legacy, imbuing it with a profound sense of artistic urgency.

    "All of the things that you make are a kind of quest for immortality. Because you’re making these things that you know have a different kind of life. They don’t depend on breathing, so they’ll last longer than any of us will. Which is sort of an interesting idea, that it’s sort of extending your life to some degree." —Keith Haring

    • Provenance

      The Estate of Keith Haring, New York
      Peter Gwyther Gallery, London
      Pedro Serra, Mallorca
      Private Collection, Andorra
      Private Collection, New York
      Acquired from the above by the present owner

    • Exhibited

      London, Peter Gwyther Gallery, Keith Haring, May 14–July 31, 1999

    • Artist Biography

      Keith Haring

      American • 1958 - 1990

      Haring's art and life typified youthful exuberance and fearlessness. While seemingly playful and transparent, Haring dealt with weighty subjects such as death, sex and war, enabling subtle and multiple interpretations. 

      Throughout his tragically brief career, Haring refined a visual language of symbols, which he called icons, the origins of which began with his trademark linear style scrawled in white chalk on the black unused advertising spaces in subway stations. Haring developed and disseminated these icons far and wide, in his vibrant and dynamic style, from public murals and paintings to t-shirts and Swatch watches. His art bridged high and low, erasing the distinctions between rarefied art, political activism and popular culture. 

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Pyramid

stamped with the artist's signature, number, date and foundry mark "K. Haring 89 ⨁ AP 2/6 EDITIONS SCHELLMANN MUNICH ∙ NEW YORK" on the interior
anodized aluminum
29 1/2 x 57 x 57 in. (74.9 x 144.8 x 144.8 cm)
Executed in 1989, this work is artist's proof number 2 from an edition of 15 plus 6 artist's proofs.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$90,000 - 130,000 

Sold for $176,400

Contact Specialist

Patrizia Koenig

Head of New Now Sale

212 940 1279

pkoenig@phillips.com

New Now

New York Auction 28 September 2021