Until 18th April: Exhibition “Keith Haring” at Palazzo Blu | Pisa

Keith Haring at Palazzo Blu. Pisa pays tribute to the artist with an exhibition scheduled from 12 November 2021 to 18 April 2022.

A focus on Tuttomondo murale

The exhibition – organised by the Fondazione Pisa and Mondomostre and curated by Kaoru Yanase, Chief Curator of the Nakamura Keith Haring Collection in Japan – focuses on the art and life of the street artist, with particular attention to “Tuttomondo”, the mural that Haring created in Pisa in 1989.

The project originated from a chance meeting between the artist and the young student Piergiorgio Castellani in New York in 1987. Castellani suggested that Haring should do something big in Italy and the artist agreed, which is how the “Keith Haring Italian Project” took shape.

The monumental painting, which occupies a surface area of 180 square metres, has over the years become one of the great attractions of the city of Pisa, guardian of one of the artist’s last great works: a hymn to joy that is still considered his artistic testament.

Over 170 works on display

The exhibition, divided into 9 sections, presents for the first time in Europe a rich selection of works, over 170, from the Nakamura Keith Haring Collection, Kazuo Nakamura’s personal collection, located in the museum dedicated to the artist, in Japan.

The collection includes works from Haring’s earliest to his latest works, many complete series such as Apocalypse (1988), Flowers, (1990) and various other drawings, sculptures and large works on canvas such as Untitled (1985).

Widely recognised for his brightly coloured and jubilant works of art, Haring’s works are familiar and well known even to those who are not familiar with his short artistic parabola because his stylised and moving little men, his hearts, his dogs and his signs in general are part of the baggage of public images and more, all over the world, and it is these that have made him a symbol of 1980s pop culture and art.