After spending much time in museums or in the shadows, Keith Haring’s works seem to be slowly returning to the streets. Regardless of the fact that it had been disassembled more than three decades ago, a work by Keith Haring returned back to the streets of New York last May. It is now the turn of a giant mural to become visible again in the streets of Amsterdam, after nearly 30 years of absence.
The work, painted in 1986, is the largest fresco of the artist in Europe. It covered one side of the warehouses of the Stedelijk Museum before they were decommissioned. The wall was then covered with aluminum insulation panels. Four years ago, street artist and graffiti artist Mick La Rock came across a picture of the fresco and did everything to get the artwork back in the air, by contacting museums and numerous institutions. The mural was unveiled and exposed to everyone on June 18. It is to be restored by two artists specializing in the work of Keith Haring.
In the meantime, another work dating back to 1986 was also restored and installed: the artist had also painted the curtain of the huge Stedelijk Museum glass roof. The piece was exhibited last fall in the main hall of the museum for four months. The work attracted huge crowds, but reactions of art critics remain mixed, reviving the eternal debate on the place of street art and graffiti in museums.
