Acrobats
Medium: Enamel aluminum
Year: 1987
Dimensions: 24 x 9 1/2 x 5 7/8 inches (61x24x15 cm)
Edition: 6
Signed, dated and numbered on the base
“Sculpture has a kind of power that a painting doesn’t have. You can’t burn it. It would survive a nuclear blast probably. It has this permanent, real feeling that will exist much, much longer than I will ever exist, so it’s a kind of immortality. All of it I guess, to a degree, is like that … All of the things that you make are a kind of quest for immortality.”
Created in 1987, Acrobats presents three of Haring’s iconic stick figures stacked playfully in kinetic balance. Challenging traditional notions of static sculpture, it reflects the artist’s unwavering passion for music, dance and nightlife of his era. With one figure balancing on its head and another breaking out in a handstand, it is a vision of freedom, motion and physical joy.
While seemingly playful, Haring’s works also deal with pertinent political and social issues, centered on themes of death, sex, and war. As an activist, he was deeply committed to the causes he supported, in particular raising awareness for the AIDS epidemic which became a topic close to his heart after he was diagnosed with it in 1988. As well as celebrating dance and life, Acrobats thus harbors a further layer of meaning: one of empathy, perseverance and defiance. It was also important to Haring to give back to the larger art world, and the artist often used the totem as a way of capturing the spiritual significance of the community to which he belonged.
More than anything, sculpture provided Haring with a means of touching people’s lives. Many of his public works were placed in locations where children could interact freely with them. He created murals and sculptures in the U.S. and Europe, in locations such as the Necker Children’s Hospital in Paris, the San Antonia Church in Pisa and the Carmine Street Swimming Pool in New York. Although Haring strove to communicate both specific and general messages through his art, he also wanted his work to be ambiguous enough that it could be interpreted by anyone on their own terms. Rendered in Haring’s brilliant, universal language, Acrobats radiates a potent energy of optimism and reinforces his faithful devotion to creating art for the people.
Auction Results
Christie’s Hong-Kong: 23 November 2019
Estimated: HKD 2,000,000 – 2,800,000
HKD 2,500,000
KEITH HARING (1958-1990)
Acrobats, 1987
Enamel Aliminum
Signed, dated and numbered ‘1/6 K.Haring 87’ (on the base)