“[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.”
Keith Haring quoted in Flash Art, March 1984, p. 22.
An ebullient ray of sunshine yellow, Keith Haring’s monumental outdoor sculpture Julia is utterly definitive of the artist’s overarching ambition to bring art to the masses via an extraordinary, unprecedented fusion of the realm of high art and the public sphere. Julia embodies energy and grace through its joyous representation of the human figure. Named after Haring’s close friend, assistant and studio manager Julia Gruen, who, since his death has been instrumental in establishing Haring’s legacy as a seminal figure within the world of contemporary art, the sculpture employs Haring’s core artistic principles and beliefs about the celebration of humanity, possessing a distinctive silhouette that echoes the bold lines of his drawings and paintings. Executed in aluminium and painted in bright primary yellow, Julia strikes a pose reminiscent of an energetic dancer in full swing, caught mid-motion. The sculpture has an undeniable sense of dynamism that perfectly encapsulates Haring’s desire to create works that do not imitate life but “try to create life, try to invent life” (Cliff Flyman, ‘Interview with Keith Haring’, 26 September 1980, in: Germano Celant, Ed., Keith Haring, Munich 1992, p. 116).
Haring’s brief but illustrious career, which spanned the 1980s, began with a childhood interest in the cartoon-like figures from popular culture created by cartoonists such as Dr. Seuss and Walt Disney. After moving to New York City in 1978, Haring was swept up in the thriving alternative art community that was developing outside the gallery and museum system. It was here, in the downtown streets, subways and public spaces, that Haring established a personal and artistic connection with fellow artists Kenny Scharf and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Scharf and Basquiat were similarly employing anti-establishment methods to create unauthorised public artworks that endeavoured to reduce the distinction between high and low art.
The desire to minimise this distinction further associated Haring with one of his largest influences, French artist Jean Dubuffet. Dubuffet’s attack on conformism and mainstream culture meant that he occupied the paradox of the anti-establishment artist who became sought after by large corporations and museums, much like Haring himself. In the 1960s Dubuffet developed a radically new, graphic style, called Hourloupe that combined the fluid movement of line with fields of colour to evoke the manner in which objects appear in the mind. This style was further deployed in sculpture and important public commissions by Dubuffet throughout the 1960s and early 1970s.
Drawing inspiration from artists such as Dubuffet, Haring developed an inimitable graphic expression that extended the art historical canon surrounding the power and primacy of line. Haring displayed this innovative graphic style through his drawings and paintings, creating a new visual language that became immediately synonymous with his name. However, it was through sculpture that Haring was able to combine his characteristic treatment of line with his interest in public art.
Producing more than 50 public artworks between 1982 and 1989 in cities around the world, Haring created sculptures for charities, hospitals, children’s day care centres and orphanages. The evolution of Haring’s practice from graffiti chalk drawings on the subway to these monumental public sculptures shows the consistency in his desire to create artwork which maintains public visibility and accessibility. By encouraging the public to interact with his sculpture – and in fact ensuring the edges were rounded so as to reduce injury to any children playing on them – Haring continued his crusade to break down the barriers between low and high art. Julia, measuring almost two and a half metres in height, stands tall as a bold and jubilant structure that exudes energy and life and invites the viewer to become a part of her world. In line with Haring’s belief that “art should be something that liberates the soul, provokes the imagination, and encourages people to go further,” Julia demonstrates Haring’s ability to unite line, colour and the human figure in a manner that brings sculpture to life (Keith Haring quoted in: Jeffrey Deitch and Julia Gruen, Keith Haring, New York 2008, p. 19).
Transcending the infinite stillness of the sculptural condition, in its animated, rhythmic composition and bold yellow hue, Keith Haring’s Julia joyfully recollects the artist’s participation in the vibrant dance culture of 1980s New York. On the floors of The Roxy and Paradise Garage, alongside famous DJs such as Larry Levan and Afrika Bambaataa, whom the artist counted as some of his closest friends, Haring and his generation fervently asserted their existence, dancing in the face of the looming threat of the AIDS epidemic. Executed in aluminum, standing over a meter in height, Julia is a schematic representation of the human body, devoid of any individual features, instantly evoking the recognizable, graffiti-art aesthetic that was the basis of Haring’s entire body of work. Yet in the expansive flight of its arms, in the latent energy contained in the bend of its knees, in the poise of its half-lifted foot, Julia seems to spin and turn, capturing the movements of the breakdancers, voguers and capoeira dancers which filled Haring’s frenetic nights, played on his mind and spilled over into his art.
Julia is also a deeply personal tribute to the energy and vitality of the artist’s confidante, Julia Gruen. Beginning as the artist’s assistant and studio manager in 1984, Julia’s professional relationship with Haring soon intensified into the powerful bond of genuine friendship. In 1989, a year before Haring’s premature death from AIDS, Julia was appointed director of the Keith Haring Foundation, a post she continues to hold today. With poignant, heartfelt longing, Julia recalled her time with Haring: ‘For six years I worked alongside him – at first in his studio and office at Broadway and Houston Streets, and then a few blocks north, in a larger space, where I still work today, fifteen years after his death, twenty-one years after we met… Every day I walk into his studio, where the ghosts of his paintings have bled onto the walls. This is where I work. It is the same place that used to reverberate with the bass-line of the relentless dance music he constantly listened to, a space that quivered with the kinetic energy he exuded and the unending flow of visitors he welcomed at all hours. It isn’t like that any more. It hasn’t been, not for a long, long time. Nevertheless, I’m still here. I’m here because he asked me to stay. I’m here because his life gave more meaning to mine’ (J. Gruen, ‘Untitled’ in The Keith Haring Show, exh. cat., La Triennale di Milano, Milan, 2005, pp. 29-30).
Infused with energy and dynamism, friendship and trust, Julia is an exceptional work, which both exemplifies Haring’s signature aesthetic, so iconic of his time, and reveals the artist’s vivid, vulnerable humanity. In Haring’s own words, ‘once you cut this thing out of steel and put it up, it’s a real thing. It has a kind of power that a painting doesn’t have. It has this permanent, real feeling that will exist much, much, much longer than I will ever exist, so it’s a kind of immortality.’ (K. Haring, quoted in D. Drenger, ‘Art and Life: An Interview with Keith Haring’, in Columbia Art Review, spring, 1988, p. 49).
1. Julia (Monumental size)
Julia
Medium: Painted aluminum
Year: 1987
Dimensions: 96 x 78 1/2 x 58 1/2 inches (243.8 x 199.4 x 148.6 cm)
Edition: 5
Artist’s Proofs: 1
Auction Results
Sotheby’s London: 1 July 2015
Estimated: GBP 400,000 – 600,000
GBP 485,000
KEITH HARING
Julia, 1987
Painted aluminum
Incised with the artist’s signature and and stamped 1/5 on the base
This work is number 1 from an edition of 5, plus 1 artist’s proof
2. Julia (Medium size)
Julia
Medium: Painted aluminum
Year: 1987
Dimensions: 48 x 39 1/4 x 74 1/4 inches (121.9 x 99.7 x 74.3 cm)
Edition: 7
Artist’s Proofs: 2
Auction Results
Christie’s London: 17 October 2015
Estimated: GBP 180,000 – 250,000
GBP 212,500
KEITH HARING (1958-1990)
Julia, 1987
Painted Aluminum
Stamped with the artist’s signature, number, date and foundry mark ‘K. Haring 1987 4/7 acf’ (on the base)
This work is number four from an edition of seven plus two artist’s proofs