The Keith Haring Radiant Vision exhibition has been extended to Monday, Oct. 11, in order to allow additional visitors to see the exhibit.
Keith Haring is a famous pop artist. The exhibit is meant to encompass his life and work which included subway drawings, street art, gallery shows and more.
By KATHARINE J. WRIGHT • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com
Artist Keith Haring died more than 30 years ago, but his work appears as hip as ever.
“Keith Haring: Radiant Visions,” an exhibition devoted to the artist’s brief but productive career, opened at the Fenimore Art Museum last weekend to acclaim. Even those born after his untimely death from AIDS in 1990, recognized Haring’s iconic linear drawings from recent product collaborations with Converse or Uniqlo; visitors who were actually alive in the 1980s smiled as they recalled spotting Haring’s characteristic “Radiant Baby” motif on the streets of downtown Manhattan, on murals for public buildings across the country, or in his products for sale in Haring’s own “Pop Shop” store.
ONEONTA PLANT SALE – 9 a.m. – Noon. Join Oneonta Federated Garden Club for annual plant sale featuring perrenial and house plants from members gardens. Will also include a ‘garden shed’ where gently used garden tools may be purchased. Huntington Park, Oneonta. Visit www.facebook.com/Oneonta-Federated-Garden-Club-133855897358767/
COOPERSTOWN PLANT SALE – 9 a.m. – 3 p.m. Stop by the Master Gardeners spring 2021 plant sale for perennials, annuals, vegetables, and flowers chosen to do well in Otsego County. Mask/social distancing required. Proceeds support education & outreach conducted by Master Gardener volunteers. Cornell Cooperative Extension, 123 Lake St., Cooperstown. 607-547-2536 ext. 228 or visit cceschoharie-otsego.org/events/2021/05/29/otsego-master-gardener-spring-plant-sale-2021
HERITAGE PLANT SALE – 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Find organic plants of olden days to get a jump start on your gardening endeavors. Outside the main entrance of The Farmers’ Museum, Cooperstown. 607-547-1450 or visit www.farmersmuseum.org/event/heritage-plant-sale/
A few years ago, Angel Garcia had just completed what he described as an anti-racism mural, “balanced with positive imagery,” at New York City’s Dual Language Middle School on West 77th Street.
“The theme idea was to create a mural that would explore the topic of racism – and healing,” said the Brooklyn artist, who will be creating a mural in Pioneer Park this summer in connection with the Keith Haring exhibit that opens May 29, Memorial Day Weekend, at The Fenimore Art Museum.
He was leaving the school soon after it was completed, and there, in front of the mural, “was one student explaining the imagery to another. They were using the mural to educate each other.
“It was beautiful moment,” said Garcia, now 29, a prolific artist whose opus to date includes 10 public murals in New York City and many individual canvases.
The Fenimore’s president, Paul D’Ambrosio, said the idea of commissioning a mural downtown in connection with muralist Haring’s exhibit came out of staff brainstorming during the grant application process.
“Everybody loved the idea,” he said. “We couldn’t put the (Haring) artwork downtown. But we could create one.”
A wooden wall will be built in Pioneer Park’s left-hand corner. After the Haring exhibit closes, the mural will become part of The Fenimore’s permanent collection, D’Ambrosio said.
The Fenimore exhibit will include “Radiant Baby,” Keith Haring’s best-known work.
‘Though he died in 1990, in many ways Keith Haring is still alive. His art is everywhere. There are Haring T-shirts, Haring shoes, Haring chairs. You can buy Haring baseball hats and badges and baby-carriers and playing cards and stickers and keyrings.
“Keith Haring’s work pops up all over the place – his radiant baby, the barking dog, the dancer, the three-eyed smiling face. Simple, cheerful, upbeat, instantly recognisable …
“But Haring did much more than provide cute cartoons … His art faced outwards. He wanted to inform, to start a conversation, to question authority and convention, to represent the oppressed.”
Miranda Sawyer
The Guardian, June 2, 2019, on opening of major Haring exhibit at the Tate Liverpool
The Fenimore’s come a long way, baby, from “Grandma Moses: Grandmother to the Nation,” 15 years ago, to Keith Haring, the highlight of the museum’s 2021 season.
If Grandma Moses harkened back to simpler times, Haring’s concerns – though he died on Feb. 16, 1990 – are center stage in the 21st Century.
“It’s a whole new ballgame,” said Fenimore President/CEO Paul D’Ambrosio. “It’s very different from what you’d expect from The Fenimore.”
The Fenimore’s season begins April 1, but anticipation is centering on “Keith Haring: Radiant Vision,” which will open May 29, Memorial Day Weekend, and run through Sept. 6, Labor Day.
It will include more than 100 pieces, D’Ambrosio said.
In a preview of what’s to come, Keith Haring’s “Medusa Head” (1986) has been hung on the second floor landing of The Fenimore Museum. His largest work it is just one of the more than 80 Haring prints and original artworks that will be on view in next year’s major exhibition at The Fenimore, “Keith Haring: Radiant Vision.” The exhibition is traveled by PAN ART Connections, Inc.
The planned exhibit of Keith Haring works at the Fenimore Art Museum has been postponed until 2021.
COOPERSTOWN – Exhibits of Keith Haring and Ansel Adams artworks have been postponed until 2021, according to a release from the Fenimore Art Museum.
“Keith Haring: Radiant Vision,” “Manzanar: The Wartime Photographs of Ansel Adams” and “The World of Jan Brett” were all postponed, as were the Glimmerglobe Theatre’s productions of “The Tempest: and “A Moon for the Misbegotten.”
“These exhibitions represented the core of our 2020 season,” said the Fenimore. “They are now expected to draw large numbers to the area next spring and summer.”
