Apocalypse 2
Apocalypse 2
Signed Print
Keith Haring
£5,000-£7,500Value Indicator
$10,500-$16,000 Value Indicator
$9,000-$14,000 Value Indicator
¥50,000-¥70,000 Value Indicator
€6,000-€9,000 Value Indicator
$50,000-$80,000 Value Indicator
¥950,000-¥1,420,000 Value Indicator
$6,500-$10,000 Value Indicator
AAGR (5 years) This estimate blends recent public auction records with our own private sale data and network demand.
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Medium: Screenprint
Edition size: 90
Year: 1988
Size: H 97cm x W 97cm
Signed: Yes
Format: Signed Print
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Auction Results
| Auction Date | Auction House | Location | Hammer Price | Return to Seller | Buyer Paid |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 2024 | Adam Partridge Auctioneers & Valuers | United Kingdom | |||
| April 2024 | Wright | United States | |||
| May 2023 | Uppsala Auktionskammare | Sweden | |||
| April 2022 | Dorotheum, Vienna | Austria | |||
| September 2021 | Sotheby's Online | United Kingdom | |||
| July 2021 | Christie's New York | United States | |||
| June 2021 | Germann Auctions | Switzerland |
Meaning & Analysis
Keith Haring’s signed screen print Apocalypse 2, taken from his Apocalypse series (1988), is a limited edition of 90. In this print Haring portrays a vision of war and terror with his harsh gestural lines and bright splashes of colour that represents the atrocities of the AIDS epidemic.
Showing a perplexing scene of dystopian chaos, solid, heavy lines are used by Haring to depict the densely populated scene. Thick strokes, splatters of primary colour and harsh gestural marks produce jolts of violence and dynamism. Haring’s phallocentric universe is shown in a state of war, emphasised by explosions, collisions, army vehicles and menacing humanoids falling from the sky.
Apocalypse 2 directly relates death and danger to sexuality and promiscuity. Phalluses in the image are conceptualised as instruments of war, shooting at humanoids and causing destruction. As an adolescent, Haring witnessed the traumatising events of the Vietnam War on television and undoubtedly this had a lasting effect on his artwork. The dismaying realities of the AIDS epidemic, and Haring’s subsequent diagnosis in 1988, are depicted in this post-apocalyptic scene as acts of total violence and devastation, likened to the wars that Haring witnessed on TV in his youth.
As with Apocalypse 1, Haring uses collage to reproduce and duplicate Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. Haring undermines the cerebral nature of fine art through defacement and duplication. In this print the Mona Lisa has been cut up and vandalised by black felt lines. As such, her beauty is wholly perverted. Just as his good friend Jean-Michel Basquiat had done before him, Haring used his unique graffiti style to erode boundaries between the public and the world of high art.
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
