Known for his era-defining 1980s pop art coupled with his social activism, Keith Haring’s work stands the test of time. Now a selection of digital drawings made by the late artist in 1987 will be sold by auction house Christie’s as Ethereum NFTs.
On Tuesday, Christie’s announced that it will be hosting “Keith Haring: Pixel Pioneer,” an online auction of five digital works originally created by Haring on a Commodore Amiga computer. Haring got the device from the late psychologist and author Timothy Leary Gil Vazquez, executive director and president of the Keith Haring Foundation.
Previously only visible via floppy disk, the drawings were struck by the Foundation for the sale. Estimates for the auction, open for bids September 12-20, range from $220,000 to $500,000 per work.
“Untitled” by Keith Haring. Image: Christie’s
The pieces will be exhibited in Seoul, Korea, September 7-8, and then at Christie’s New York September 14-19. The Amiga drawings were created in collaboration with technical partner Digital Practice, together with global licensing agency Artestar.
from Haring signature style consisted of the repetition of figurative shapes in vibrant colors, outlined in black. His work bridged clashing genres – popular culture and street art with that of the traditional gallery business.
Haring died of AIDS-related complications in 1990 at the age of 31. Even as his star rose, he continued to chalk versions of his famous designs on the New York subway and composed countless murals. Vazquez told Decrypt that all this, together with his experiments with digital art, fits well within Haring’s broader mantra of ‘art is for everyone’.
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“It makes sense that he would use any medium possible to get his ideas across to the masses,” Vazquez said, “especially to people who weren’t gallery and museum goers.”
“He manifested art in non-traditional ways, such as subway chalk drawings, murals, found objects, painting on industrial sails, and digital art, rather than tried-and-true canvas,” Vazquez added. “At its core, it was rebellion against the established, accepted ways of distributing and consuming art.”
Haring’s work can now be found in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), among others.
“Keith Haring defined a generation in which art appealed to the masses. His New York City subway drawings in the 1980s brought art to the streets and his aesthetic became iconic. Nicole Sales Giles, Christie’s Vice President and Director of Digital Art Sales, told us Decrypt. “His ability to bring the art world to everyone made him a pioneer of his time.”
She added that while many see Web3’s creative world as separate from the traditional art world, the walls are coming down.
“Beeple’s work is currently on display at Crystal Bridges, other major institutions such as LACMA have added NFTs added to their permanent collection, and serious collectors continue to see digital art as an important category within their collections,” she says.
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“Keith Haring, if alive and practicing today, would be – I think – a strong advocate of bridging the Web3 and traditional art worlds,” added Sales Giles.
As the Amiga drawings show, Haring was an early adopter when it came to embracing the emerging digital age. A rendering of the first Apple Macintosh computer appears in his April 1984 “Untitled” work. When it went under the hammer at Christie’s in 2021, it was the first physical work to be sold by a major auction house marked option to pay in cryptocurrency.
The Haring Foundation first joined Web3 in March last year. To celebrate National Youth AIDS Awareness Day and raise money for charity, it teamed up with MAC Cosmetics and ConsenSys on a collection of 5,275 NFTs in which MAC’s Viva Glam lipstick was animated with Haring’s most famous artwork.
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By showing that such an iconic artist supported digital art so early, Sales Giles is confident that the Christie’s auction will help further expand the collector base for this category.
“Haring’s art appeals to such a wide audience,” Sales Giles told me Decrypt“that I am confident that this sale will continue to introduce more traditional art collectors to Web3 – and vice versa.”
Vazquez added that he sees “a deep divide between the traditional art world and the Web3 art world,” but believes it will be “temporary.”
“There is always a presumption of the new by who and what already existed,” said Vazquez. “This was true when Keith was with us and it still is. Acceptance is never immediate. It takes time, but it is inevitable.”