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