Andy Warhol & Keith Haring. Party of Life

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) and Keith Haring (1958–1990) were major artists of the twentieth century, charismatic networkers, pop stars, and probably the first influencers. They revolutionized established notions of art and its dissemination. Warhol’s Pop paintings and Haring’s dancing figures have long been ingrained in our collective visual memory and remain ever-present today. Despite their large age gap and different styles, these two artists were friends and companions. They met in New York’s art and clubbing scene and influenced each other—and many others besides.

Warhol and Haring both came from Christian families in Pennsylvania. As gay men, they found their creative and social home in New York, albeit thirty years apart. As one of the pioneers of Pop Art, Warhol inspired the younger Haring. The latter engaged with public space through his subway drawings, used his art in activist poster campaigns and opened the Pop Shop in 1986, an iconic place selling affordable artworks. During this time, Warhol also experimented with new techniques, media, and channels. His late work is characterized by TV shows, countless commissioned pieces and portraits of famous personalities, but also by a return to painting and a focus on existential and provocative themes: series of paintings like “The Last Supper,” “Hammer and Sickle,” and “Ladies and Gentlemen” bear witness to his precise observations on pressing social issues.

The works of art created by Warhol and Haring emerged during a time of extreme sociopolitical upheaval and still remain highly topical today. Across eight thematic rooms, visitors can experience the two artists’ exploration of a wide range of issues, including excessive consumer culture, the possibilities of new media, queerness, fears of nuclear war, the AIDS epidemic, activism, and the quest for a sense of community in times of crisis.

“Andy Warhol & Keith Haring. Party of Life” presents collaborations between Warhol and Haring, as well as projects created in cooperation with artists, performers, authors, graffiti writers, and music and fashion icons of the time, including Richard Avedon, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Joseph Beuys, William S. Burroughs, Fab 5 Freddy, Futura, Courtney Harmel, Eric Haze, Jenny Holzer, Bill T. Jones, Grace Jones, LA II, Madonna, Robert Mapplethorpe, Malcolm McLaren, Yoko Ono, Kenny Scharf, John Sex, Stephen Shore, Tseng Kwong Chi, Vivienne Westwood and many more.

In addition to famous key works, the show focuses on film and photography, archival material, posters, records, and everyday objects. The exhibition at Museum Brandhorst, which houses the largest Warhol collection in Europe with more than 120 works, as well as a growing collection of Haring’s works, thus opens up new perspectives on both artists and their friendship.