Bad Boys 4
Bad Boys 4
Signed Print
Keith Haring
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51 x 66cm, Edition of 30, Screenprint
Medium: Screenprint
Edition size: 30
Year: 1986
Size: H 51cm x W 66cm
Signed: Yes
Format: Signed Print
Last Auction: March 2023
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Meaning & Analysis
This signed screen print from 1986 is a limited edition of 30 from Keith Haring’s Bad Boys series that celebrates and advocates for safe sex in the LGBT+ community amidst the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The Bad Boys 4 print shows an image of a male figure bent forwards and so as to show his buttocks, forming the focal point of the image.
Haring himself was diagnosed with AIDS in 1988 and subsequently the subject of sex and sexuality dominated his work in the latter part of his career, before his tragic death in 1990. This image is charged with a sense of fun as well as being sexually explicit in its subject matter. Haring’s use of free flowing lines that fill the interior of the figure’s body create a sense of energy and dynamism that catches the viewer’s eye.
Writing of Keith Haring in the catalogue for the artist’s retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1997, David Ross states that “His use of simplified figurative abstract forms and his highly graphic style gave his works an immediate character, the complexity of his puzzlelike constructions pulled the viewer deeply into a unique picture space. Haring’s art radiated energy and he carefully directed that energy beyond the confines of the art world.” This is evident in the Bad Boys series, a set of five prints in black and white that recall Haring’s subway drawings from the early 1980s.
Keith Haring was a luminary of the 1980s downtown New York scene. His distinctive visual language pioneered one-line Pop Art drawings and he has been famed for his colourful, playful imagery. Haring's iconic energetic motifs and figures were dedicated to influencing social change, and particularly challenging stigma around the AIDS epidemic. Haring also pushed for the accessibility of art by opening Pop Shops in New York and Japan, selling a range of ephemera starting from as little as 50 cents. Haring's legacy has been cemented in the art-activism scene and is a testament to power of art to inspire social change
