Keith Haring exhibition.

The Keith Haring exhibition coming to the Tate Liverpool is one my favourite exhibitions I’ve seen in any of the Tate’s. Before the exhibition closed I went to see it 6 times. Every time I went I felt like I still kept seeing more, for instance with the large mural piece you can see in this video every time I went I saw a new element/character.

One of the visits to the gallery I spoke to one of the information guides working at the exhibition and I had such an interesting conversation with him, he explained how he has a theory that Keith Haring had ADHD, he came to this conclusion by observing things Haring's had wrote in his journal and noticing how much energy Keith Haring puts into his paintings. The guide also then went on to mention Keith Haring also having Kenophobia (fear of empty space) which can be seen in almost all of Keith’s work, he creates a border then he tries to fill the inside of that border as much as possible, leaving no space. I found this so fascinating it was never something I even thought to think about when discussing or looking observing Haring’s work. 

Anyway, the staff member also mentioned some interesting points about the Blacklight room in the exhibition, explaining how this area of the exhibition was inspired by an actual exhibition Keith Haring had created himself. Keith had made some work for a gallery exhibition and it was a typical white wall gallery and when his friends came to the exhibition they mentioned to Keith how they didn’t feel comfortable or welcome in this exhibition space, so the next time this gallery asked him to do another exhibition Keith transformed the gallery. The ‘into 84’ exhibition used blacklights and Keith’s partner played music throughout the night, Keith had transformed a gallery into a club environment and he made UV work just for this exhibition.