Keith Haring in 1989: “Unfinished Painting”. Haring died few months after and this is his last painting. This is supposed to be a self-portrait. Haring knew he wouldn’t have enough time to finish it. This is one of the saddest but certainly the most powerful thing I’ve ever seen.
to clarify: this is a finished self portrait. haring did know that he would be unable to continue to work; this “unfinished” painting refers to that self-consciously as a visualization of how the aids crisis and government neglect robbed him of his life and future career.
i feel like this distinction is important? there are many artists who died due to hiv/aids and left unfinished work, but haring made this specifically to comment on his impending death. i feel like stating that it’s actually unfinished takes away some of his agency as an artist/activist/pwa and the political power of the work.
*thinks abt characters having a domestic life* oh god. Oh fuck. *trascends into the next astral plane*
My theory is just that us lgbt folk are so used to being scared of being ourselves since society shuns us into being afraid of what we are publicily that using fictional characters as an escapade to project our aspirations of a healthy, domestic life lets us have that piece of happiness of what we can’t do yet, in this essay i will,
op literally became ridiculously attracted to himself after his friend drew a portrait of him and then proceeded to become immortalised through the painting, leading a life of hedonism, murder and debauchery but go off i guess
