ART AIN’T DEAD, YOU ARE! An Analysis of how Capitalism has Warped Keith Haring’s Artistic Rhetoric
by Spiral Weber
From the author:
This paper was written for the final of my WRT181H course in fall of 2024. The assignment was to choose a figure or group of associated figures from history and analyze their rhetoric. It took me entirely too long to figure out who I wanted to write or even think about. When your frame of study is all of recorded history, you’ve got quite a lot to choose from. What eventually pushed me in the direction of Keith Haring was the rediscovery of the tweet I mention in the paper — a person who used generative AI to complete the intentionally left incomplete final piece Haring made. The piece, simply titled “Unfinished Painting”, was left as such because he died of HIV/AIDS while making it. It is often cited in the same breath as “Untitled” by Félix González-Torres or “Electric Fan (Feel it Motherfuckers)” by John S. Boskovich, both of which exist as commentaries on HIV/AIDS-related death. For me, the decision to use genAI to complete Haring’s piece was incredibly disrespectful and showed a clear lack of understanding of the reason why he made it in the first place. Moreover, most of Haring’s art that has been profited off of post-mortem has been his less political pieces, which I thought was fascinating given how active he was for anti-apartheid, protesting the AIDS crisis, and other highly political movements. As an artist surrounded by other artists in a world increasingly defined by profit, I think this paper is a necessary look into the way that has been reflected throughout history.
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