Keith Haring
Client
Tate Liverpool
Services
Exhibition Design
Visitor Journey
Production Management
Tate Liverpool presents the first major UK exhibition of American artist Keith Haring, bringing together more than 85 works, most of which have never been seen in the UK.
When commissioned to work on this project, we spent days immersing ourselves in Haring's work and the hive of creativity that was NYC in that decade. We looked at photos by Ricky Powell and Miron Zownir and watched hours of documentaries and newsreels from the era, capturing the cultural zeitgeist.
Keith Haring's work is incredibly iconic and famously bold. We felt it crucial to honour that while also respecting the tone of his work. With the video work Painting Myself Into A Corner, we used the space's architecture to reinforce the work's perspective. Whereas for Haring's immersive 'black light' room, we utilised the effect of neon paint stripes as a backdrop to the neon paintings as a reference to the nightclub aesthetics of NYC's Tony Shafrazi Gallery, where the installation was first presented in 1982.
It was essential to subtly weave elements of New York street style and culture into the exhibition; we needed the gallery to feel like neither a static museum nor Haring's famous boutique - Pop Shop. It needed to incorporate the diversity of expression, performative drawings and Haring's evolution from a young artist to a pop icon and, finally, a political activist. The political spaces were designed as 'open' to encourage visitors to observe these nuances, while other areas were created as more intimate experiences.
To ensure visitors experience these different nuances, the political spaces were designed to be more open, while other areas were designed as more intimate experiences, and this informed the colours we selected for each piece.
