What We’re Watching: Keith Haring’s The Message

There are two great Keith Haring documentaries. Most people know about The Universe of Keith Haring, directed by Christina Clausen and released in 2008.

This is the second. Keith Haring: The Message was released in conjunction with the Keith Haring retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. Directed by famed designer, Madonna stylist and Haring confidante Maripol, The Message goes pretty deep into both the artist and the city and times he’ll forever be identified with: New York City, circa the 1980s. The focus, as the title indicates, is upon the “struggles that animated” Keith Haring’s work, his activism – in a word, his “message.”

KEITH HARING, THE MESSAGE – version intégrale by ARTECreative

Being French, it was posted by ARTE Creative on Daily Motion, which can sometimes be a bit buffer-y. It’s worth it. Here are the original notes and timecodes for the six episodes of Keith Haring: The Message joined together here:

KEITH HARING, THE MESSAGE
Directed by Maripol.

1. Downtown 00’00 ”
2. Acculturation 09’25 ”
3. All entry pass 18’50 ”
4. Activism 26’32
5. Once upon a time 33’41 ”
6. The Message 40’41 ”

The series “Keith Haring, The Message” proposes to discover from inside the struggles that animated the artist. Director Maripol interviewed New York friends, witnesses and actors from the New York scene of teh 1980s.

With Fab 5 Freddy, Jane Dickson, Kenny Scharf, Diego Cortez, Tony Schafrazi, Keith Sonnier, Gil Vasquez, Suzanne Mallouk, Michael of Benedictus, Alba Clemente, Jellybean Benitez, Dieter Bucchart, Marvin Taylor, Robert Woodworth, Nina Clemente, Garth, Deborah Harry.