Keith Haring’s Monumental Mural Returns to Amsterdam

Dubbed the ‘contemporary Bayeux tapestry’ by Rein Wolfs, director of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Keith Haring‘s 38-metre-long Amsterdam Notes (1986) returns to the city where it was created this week.

Haring made the vast black and red ink drawing for his solo exhibition at the museum 37 years ago. Abandoning his typical motifs of barking dog heads and ‘radiant baby’ figures, Amsterdam Notes see’s the artist indulge in a host of weird and wondrous creatures, including fish–a nod to Haring’s name which means ‘herring’ in Dutch. Other subjects include sexually liberated bodies, burning crucifixes, and a static television.

Amsterdam Notes tackles complex socio-political themes like religion and sexuality in an accessible style. Embedded with motifs from the culture that shaped New York in the 1970s and 1980s, Pop Art, graffiti, and hieroglyphics come together in one of the largest museum artworks he ever made.

Stedelijk Museum’s restaging of Haring’s monumental work on paper comes just a day before the travelling exhibition Keith Haring: Art Is for Everybody debuts at The Broad in Los Angeles (27 May–8 October 2023). The exhibition will move to the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto (11 November 2023–17 March 2024) and to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis (27 April–8 September 2024).

Main image: Keith Haring, Amsterdam Notes (1986). © Keith Haring Foundation. Courtesy Collection Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.