Displaying items by tag: keith haring

Manhattan’s federal court has dismissed a lawsuit brought by Elizabeth Bilinski and 19 other collectors against the Keith Haring Foundation over its refusal to authenticate 111 works.

According to the court papers, Bilinski submitted works she owned by Haring, which she and the other plaintiffs had acquired from Angelo Moreno, a friend of the artist, to the foundation in 2007. But the foundation, without giving a reason, rejected the pieces as “not authentic.” When Bilinski submitted what she considered more evidence of authenticity, including a statement from Moreno, the foundation refused to reconsider its decision. The collectors said that a forensic report indicated that the art could have been created during Haring’s lifetime, and that experts at Sotheby’s believed the works to be authentic, but the auction house refused to sell them without the foundation’s approval.

Skarstedt announces an exhibition of work by American artist Keith Haring, at their Chelsea gallery this March. The exhibition uniquely presents 5 major works on canvas, all at a monumental scale and dating from 1984-1985, exposing a lesser-known side to the iconic artist. "Keith Haring: Heaven and Hell" is on view at Skarstedt (550 W. 21st Street) through April 18, 2015.

The exhibition’s title, "Heaven and Hell," recalls William Blake’s 18th century poem The Marriage of Heaven and Hell—a study in opposites of good and evil, angels and devils. As William Blake wrote, “Without contraries is no progression.” Haring similarly examined the duality between two sides of contemporary life in his 1984-1985 paintings. The apparent antagonism and struggle between the figures is one of the key features of Haring’s art.

"The Last Rainforest.” “Silence = Death.” “Apartheid.”

Though many associate the late artist Keith Haring with his seemingly innocuous images of barking dogs, crawling babies, beating hearts and flying saucers, his work often tackled social justice issues – from nuclear proliferation to AIDS to the environment to racial and income inequality.

“The Political Line,” at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, is the first show to look at Haring’s art from a social justice perspective, grouping it by themes such as racism, capitalism and consumerism, the growing use of technology in everyday life, the treatment of those suffering from HIV/AIDS, the suppression of individual freedoms, and environmental devastation.

Representatives for Manhattan real estate mogul Aby Rosen testified last night before the Old Westbury Village planning board in an effort to gain approval for the display of a 33-foot-tall graphic statue and two other large sculptures on his historic Old Westbury estate.

Experts brought by Rosen were on hand to link the plan with the "avant-garde" history of the estate. They also promised to screen much of it from the view of neighbors.

Neighbors had complained to village officials last month after artist Damien Hirst's "The Virgin Mother" was installed on a conservation easement at the A. Conger Goodyear House, a 5.5-acre estate built in 1938 and listed in 2003 on the National Register of Historic Places.

On Wednesday, May 14, Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Sale in New York garnered $364 million, falling well within the auction’s pre-sale estimate of $337 million to $474 million. Of the 79 lots offered, 12 failed to find buyers. While the auction fell short of Christie’s monumental $475 million sale, which took place the evening before, new records were set for twelve artists at Sotheby’s, including Julian Schnabel, Wade Guyton, Rosemarie Trockel, Dan Flavin, Matthew Barney, and Keith Haring.

The top lot of the night was Andy Warhol’s “Six Self-Portraits,” which had resided in a private collection since its creation in 1986. The portraits, which are among the last works created by the pioneering Pop artist, sold for $30.1 million (estimate: $25 million to $35 million). The Warhol works were trailed by Gerhard Richter’s oil-on-canvas painting “Blaud” (1988), which sold to a telephone bidder for $28.7 million (estimate: $25 million to $35 million) and Jeff Koons’ mirror polished stainless steel sculpture with transparent color coating titled “Popeye” (1988), which fetched $28.2 million (estimate on request). The 6 ½-foot tall sculpture was purchased by billionaire casino tycoon and art collector Steve Wynn, who plans to display the work in his Las Vegas casino.

On Friday, February 21, 2014, nine art collectors filed a lawsuit against the Keith Haring Foundation after it publicly stated that roughly 80 works owned by the collectors were fakes. The collectors said that the defendant's statement harmed the value of their paintings, costing them at least $40 million. According to the lawsuit filed in Manhattan district court, the foundation refused to fully evaluate the works before writing them off as fakes.

In March 2013, the foundation filed a trademark and copyright infringement lawsuit that alleged that the works in the exhibition “Haring Miami” were fakes. The show’s promoters agreed to remove the works from the exhibit, leaving the collectors unable to sell them. The collectors said that the foundation is hoping to keep the number of authenticated Haring works low in order to increase the value of previously certified works in their possession.

Haring, an American artist and social activist, often raised political questions about HIV/AIDS and gay identity through his work. Through his activism, Haring helped the mainstream understand the AIDS crisis as a human rights issue rather than an affliction faced by a specific community.

Bard College’s Center for Curatorial Studies and Human Rights has launched its Keith Haring Fellowship in Art and Activism thanks to a $400,000 grant from the Keith Haring Foundation. The Fellowship is a cross-disciplinary, annual, visiting Fellowship for a scholar, activist or artist to teach and conduct research at the Center for Curatorial Studies and the Human Rights Project at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The recipient will investigate the role of art as a catalyst for social change and present original research in an annual lecture. The findings will be published and distributed among colleges and universities worldwide.

Julia Gruen, Executive Director of the Keith Haring Foundation, said, “We are honored to establish this dynamic fellowship at Bard College in Keith Haring’s name. The artist as activist was a role integral to Haring’s own vision, identity and practice, and we are confident that a fellowship dedicated to this approach can produce illuminating opportunities for discourse and scholarship.” Haring, an American artist and social activist who succumbed to AIDS in 1990, often raised political questions about HIV/AIDS and gay identity through his work. Through his activism, Haring helped the mainstream understand the AIDS crisis as a human rights issue rather than an affliction faced by a specific community.

Bard College will begin accepting applications for the Keith Haring Fellowship in February. The first Fellow will be announced in the spring of 2014.

On July 2, 2013, a U.S. District judge decided the fate of 15 contemporary artworks once belonging to the disgraced financier and attorney, Marc S. Dreier. Dreier was convicted of fraud in 2009 for selling hundreds of millions of dollars in fake promissory notes to hedge funders and a section of his collection has remained in limbo ever since.

Judge Jed S. Rakoff ruled that the art holdings, worth $33 million, will be turned over to New York’s Heathfield Capital Limited, the company that suffered the greatest from Dreier’s scam. The works going to Heathfield Capital include a piece by the conceptual artist John Baldessari (b. 1931), an untitled work by Keith Haring (1958-1990), one work by Alex Katz (b. 1927), three by Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997), an untitled work by Mark Rothko (1903-1970) and three pieces by Andy Warhol (1928-1987) including the iconic Jackie portrait of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. The bulk of Dreier’s collection was sold in 2010 at Phillips and the profits were reserved for creditors of Dreier’s law firm.

Drier is currently service a 20-year sentence at a federal prison in Minnesota.

The Keith Haring Foundation filed a lawsuit against the organizers of the exhibition Haring Miami on Friday, March 8, 2013 in a Miami courtroom. The Foundation, which owns all of the intellectual property rights in Keith Haring’s (1958-1990) artwork as well as a considerable chunk of the artist’s oeuvre, is seeking a restraining order and an injunction against the organizers in relation to copyright and trademark infringement.

A New York-based law firm, which is representing the Haring Foundation, asked that the organizers remove all but 10 of the 175 works on display. The Foundation claims that many of the works on view as part of Haring Miami have not been properly authenticated.

During promotions, organizers announced that approximately 200 original Haring artworks would be on view, ultimately securing sponsorship from established companies such as The Miami Herald, Bombay Sapphire, and Veuve Clicquot. Organizers also enticed a number of prominent members from the Miami arts community to join the exhibition’s “Host Committee.”

After the lawsuit was filed, exhibition organizers contacted the foundation and agreed to remove all fake artworks and destroy the accompanying exhibition catalogue, which featured the unauthenticated works. Although the organizers have been compliant, the foundation still plans to move forward with the lawsuit.

Haring founded the Keith Haring Foundation in 1989 to support organizations that offer education to underprivileged children as well as organizations that offer AIDS/HIV education, prevention, and care. The foundation is also devoted to protecting the legacy of Haring, who passed away in 1990 due to AIDS-related complications.

The Whitney Museum of American Art announced yesterday that it had received a $1 million grant from the Keith Haring Foundation. The endowment is to go towards exhibitions in the Museum’s downtown Manhattan building, which will open in 2015. Designed by Renzo Piano, the building is currently under construction and will allow the Whitney to increase the size and range of its exhibitions, programs, and permanent works on view.

The Museum began working with Haring in 1983 when he was presented for the first time in a Whitney Biennial and in The Comic Art Show at the Museum’s downtown branch. Adam D. Weinberg, the Alice Pratt Brown Director of the Whitney said, “Keith Haring was an extraordinary artist, exuberant, humane, passionate, and unflinching in his honesty. The Whitney has been a staunch supporter of Keith’s work for thirty years and this grant is a testament to our enduring relationship with Keith, his work, and his legacy.”

A year after his death, Haring went on to appear in the 1991 Whitney Biennial and in 1992 in an Independent Study Program exhibition, The Power of the City/The City of Power. The artist’s first full retrospective, Keith Haring, took place at the Whitney in 1997. He was also featured in American Century: Art and Culture 1950–2000 in 1999 and in 2010, the museum grew its Haring collection through a gift from longtime supporter of the Whitney, Emily Fisher Landau. The Whitney now counts four of his works in its permanent collection.