The Broad presents the first-ever museum exhibition in Los Angeles of Keith Haring’s expansive body of work and features over 120 artworks and archival materials. Known for his use of vibrant color, energetic linework and iconic characters like the barking dog and the radiant baby, Haring’s work continues to dissolve barriers between art and life and spread joy, all while being rooted in the creative spirit and mission of his subway drawings and renowned public murals: art is for everybody. Curated by Broad curator and exhibition manager Sarah Loyer, the exhibition explores both Haring’s artistic practice and life, with much of the source material for the exhibition coming from his personal journals.  

Divided into ten galleries in total, the expansive exhibition features the breadth of mediums Haring worked within, including video, sculpture, drawing, painting, and graphic works, as well as representations from the artist’s enormous output of public projects, from the subway drawings to his public murals. Works presented span from the late-1970s when he was a student at the School of Visual Arts in New York up until 1988, just two years before the artist died from AIDS-related illness at the age of 31. Haring’s participation in nuclear disarmament and anti-Apartheid movements are featured prominently in the show, as well as works that take on complex issues that remain crucial today from environmentalism, capitalism, and the proliferation of new technologies to religion, sexuality, and race. In the last gallery, significant works from the late 1980s are accompanied by framed posters illustrating the artist’s activism within the HIV/AIDS crisis. 

Major works held in The Broad collection such as Untitled, 1984 and Red Room, 1988 are on view in addition to key loans from many institutional and private collections, including art, ephemera and documentation provided by the Keith Haring Foundation in New York, established by the artist in 1989. The show features immersive elements, such as a gallery lit by blacklight soundtracked by playlists created by the artist himself. Additionally, the Shop at The Broad has been transformed, taking inspiration from Haring’s artistic retail space The Pop Shop, which first opened in 1986 in the SoHo neighborhood of New York.

Following its debut at The Broad, Keith Haring: Art Is for Everybody will travel to the Art Gallery of Ontario, in Toronto, from November 11, 2023 to March 17, 2024, and to the Walker Art Center, in Minneapolis, from April 27 to September 8, 2024.

Related Programs

The Un-Private Collection: Bill T. Jones + Brad Gooch on Keith Haring
On June 1, 2023, following the opening of the exhibition, The Broad will host an Un-Private Collection conversation at the Ace Theater downtown between choreographer and Haring collaborator, Bill T. Jones and Haring biography author Brad Gooch. The Un-Private Collection is an ongoing series of public programs The Broad began in September 2013. The series introduces audiences to the museum’s 2,000-work contemporary art collection by showcasing stories behind the collection through conversations among artists and cultural luminaries. Generous support provided by The Robert Gore Rifkind Foundation.

The Broad series Summer Happenings 2023 will consist of two events in conjunction with Keith Haring: Art Is for Everybody, each of which will include after-hours access to the exhibition as well as cash bars.

Summer Happenings: Club 57
The Broad teams up with iconic denizen of the 1980s East Village art scene Ann Magnuson to revisit and reignite the spirit and energy of the infamous neo-Dada cabaret Club 57, which she managed and where she met and befriended Keith Haring. Expect performances and DJ sets by legendary artists who were part of the original Club 57 and who knew Haring personally, as well as subsequent generations of artists who pay homage to or embody new examples of the grit, glitter, and experimentation that proliferated at Club 57.

Summer Happenings: 50th Anniversary of Hip-Hop
On August 26, 2023, celebrate the 50th anniversary of hip-hop with a blowout concert on the East West Bank Plaza at The Broad. The event will feature early pioneers of hip hop as well as newer artists. Hip-hop was proliferating at the time that Keith Haring was living and working in the East Village of New York. Haring embraced the music genre and participated in the lifestyle by creating graffiti and public murals as well as incorporating boom boxes, break dancers, and other urban imagery and social commentary into his paintings. Five of Haring's paintings are named after songs by Public Enemy. 

Image Credit: Keith Haring, Red Room, 1988. Acrylic on canvas. The Broad Art Foundation. © Keith Haring Art Foundation