Unlike Tribeca ‘08’s terrific New York art world doc, Guest of Cindy Sherman, The Universe of Keith Haring fails to penetrate more than cursorily (and too often annoyingly) into the brief, yet prolific career of its central figure.
New Yorkers know the work of Keith Haring perhaps more intimately than most (the “Crack is Wack” mural along the Harlem River Drive just one example out of a tremendous many), but he was, by the end of his life, a global force – friend to and collaborator with such luminaries as Madonna, Andy Warhol, and Grace Jones; commissioned by art museums and galleries the world over to paint his thick-lined, one-of-a-kind creations on a variety of surfaces (it was Haring, the mythmongers might say, who truly breached the Berlin Wall). Even stricken with an AIDS-related illness, he was asked by the Church of Sant’Antonio in Pisa to paint a massive mural that still exists to this day: quite the accomplishment for an openly gay man working his way through the Reagan recessive American 80s.
Unfortunate, then, that The Universe of Keith Haring is so stubbornly lifeless a tribute. It kowtows to Haring’s myth, offering up primarily pie-eyed testaments to the artist’s “genius” (lending credence to Eric Bogosian’s observation in Guest of Cindy Sherman that the art world is primarily an exclusive bourgeois circle jerk). Haring’s unique energy is hardly an inspirant to doc director Christina Clausen, who plods chronologically through her subject’s small-town upbringing and his quick ascendancy through the New York art scene. It has the feel of a work directed by an outsider (not a sin in and of itself), but also one with a deep disinterest (an all-too-clinical remove) from their subject. Haring and his lasting influence deserve better than this ticker-tape textbook treatment.
Background Buzz
A round up of related content from across the web including fan blogs, podcasts, analysis, news, magazines, and more. Updated often, so check back!
-Official Keith Haring website with bio, archives, store, foundations, and more.
-Read the MTV Movies Blog review of the film
-Viewable, embedable video interview with director Christina Clausen
-Text interview with Clausen from Chelsea Now
