AGO Talks

Adam Levine and Monique Johnson reflect on one year of studying the painting and share new, major discoveries: they have identified the painting’s maker, the likely location of the painting, and other works by the same artist. They’ve also uncovered new details about the painting’s provenance and the life it lived before it came to Toronto.

Jeremias Schultz, artist, and Joseph Pierre, collector

Babylon 
2005
acrylic on canvas
The Donovan Collection, University of St. Michael’s College

This massive wallwork is an abstract painting. 

With it’s bottom edge at bench height, the work is hung in landscape orientation. It is 11 feet or three point three meters tall by 20 feet or six meters wide. 

The artist creates a spatially complex scene with brushstrokes and rollers. The upper part of the landscape has some bent grey and blue lines forming casual swirls. Below and behind this are straight line brush strokes which pull upwards, grids and rows of lines make layers of abstract structures. These structures (including buildings, spaces of confinement, bridges, and boats) are also explored in many of her other works. 

This huge composition uses a palette mostly of creamy whites, shades of grays, brown, black with lots of blue background on the left and lots of oranges on the right. There are also pops of greens on both sides. 

Described from left to right: The artist has painted many vertical lines of relatively equal width in brown and terracotta oranges, some of which resemble, rungs of a ladder and building frames.
Under this is a background of grey, then light blue, then white. 

Moving towards the centre, the colours become more vibrant and the lines are sparser and thinner. The upper part of the image has grey and light blue grids over blue and three bright blue horizontal stripes. in the lower half of this section a cloud of grey loops pour upwards from a sketch of thin horizontal lines which seemingly form the walls of industrial structures. 

Moving to the right, the top of the next section introduces roller lines (where the paint was thicker) in areas that now repeat. High up is a brown roller mark that goes from vertical to curving right and a red one that is straight up and down. Beside it are light grey and brown swirls over an orange background. 

The lower part of this section is streaked with drips of paint from above. It has an arch and layers of knots of green, choral and burgundy. Thick dark brown vertical lines descend from them. 

The farthest right section has a light grey swirl against a dark grey background. The lower right corner of the work has an abstract structure resembling a cargo boat hull in brown and black which is highlighted with light grey. 

End of Audio Description.

Exhibition label text:

Thomasos continued to develop her artistic vocabulary in the mid-2000s. This work reveals the new ways in which she experimented with line, structure, and colour. The recognizable grids from her earlier work are gone, but the dense matrix of brushstrokes creates the effect of a packed, urban space. References to the language of graffiti are present, and the canvas appears to vibrate with the infrastructure and energy of a city. Biblical references also recur in Thomasos’s work, and this work’s title may be a direct reference to the troubled and immoral Mesopotamian city that reappears throughout the Christian Bible.

End of Exhibition label text.

Babylon

Dos Amigos (Slave Boat)
1993
acrylic on canvas
Collection of Cadillac Fairview

Audio description of the work

This work is an abstract painting in a landscape orientation. It is 9 feet or almost 3 meters tall by 14 feet or around 4 meters wide.

Taking up the majority of the canvas is an architectural structure shaped like a capsule which is broken open.  It is composed of black and white cross hatched lines.  Above it the sky is a crosshatched grey and white. Where the capsule breaks, the space between is filled with intersecting white lines forming an X.  The lines in this work range in thickness from very refined to very thick. The vertical lines are the thickest, they appear in front of the structure. The left half is higher than the right and takes up the top two thirds of the canvas while the right half takes up the lower two thirds of the canvas. 

End of Audio description.

Exhibition label text:

The early 1990s signaled Thomasos’s shift into abstraction. In this work, she references the transatlantic slave trade—specifically, the claustrophobic boats constructed to transport enslaved Africans to the Americas. These structures of confinement would continue to preoccupy her research. Thomasos uses line to convey the inhumane conditions of the boats, arranging the black marks in a way to suggest a suffocating cage. The title, Dos Amigos, references a 19th-century slave ship that carried enslaved Africans to Cuba. Using an unassuming palette of black, white, and grey, and employing a deceptively simple painting vocabulary of gridded latticework, Thomasos creates a visual experience that conjures the stifling intensity of a ship’s hold.

End of Exhibition label text.

Dos Amigos (Slave Boat)

Rally
1994
acrylic on canvas
Courtesy of the Estate of Denyse Thomasos and Olga Korper Gallery

Audio description of the work.

This monumental work is an abstract painting in landscape orientation.
It is 9 feet or almost 3 meters tall by 14 feet or around 4 meters wide.

This painting is composed of tight stacks of similar horizontal brush strokes in multiple vivid colours. There are 22 stacks from left to right and an average of 50 brush strokes in each stack. By this count the work totals 1100 repeated brushstrokes. Each column counts multiple short stacks. In each stack the same colour is repeated an average of 6 times; the predominant colours are orange, blue and red and less so, purple, white and yellow. The canvas behind the brushstrokes is painted with vivid colours which peek through. In the sixth stack near the top left there is one small section where the brush strokes line up vertically instead of horizontally and close by another small section has both horizontal and vertical lines.

End of Audio description.

Exhibition label text:

Thomasos spent the early 1990s teaching art in Philadelphia. During this period, she witnessed the devastating conditions many Black people lived in due to poverty. The artist revealed that “the immediate experience of urban collapse had a psychological effect on my works.” She also began her research on mass incarceration during this time. 
Here, Thomasos paints countless grids in a variety of colours, inspired by the brightly painted row houses she saw in Philadelphia. In a 2012 artist statement, she described seeing pink, green, and bright- blue homes situated beside bombed-out or abandoned houses. She wrote, “I developed my palette from the contradiction of brights and greys intermingled, symbolizing life among the dead.” 

End of Exhibition label text.

Rally

Sketchbooks and notebooks
2000s
Courtesy of the Estate of Denyse Thomasos

Audio description of the work

Eight open notebooks make up this table display. They range in size from a pocket notebook to  slightly larger than letter paper size. In the middle of the glass encased table is a book open to a 4 colour sketch of structures. At the centre of the sketch is a low green circular structure that resembles a wheel with six spokes. It is surrounded by sketches of taller architectural structures in black brown or blue. Three other sketchbooks are open to what appear to be architectural sketches and the other books are open to pages with neat handwriting in black ink.

A pad of parchment tracing paper is flipped open, it reads:

My work is about cages. About enclosure. Being enveloped. I think of the “cage” as a political object. The cage is however an animal object. My idea is a visual object – it is not an idea really. It is like saying my idea is a “line“. That is not an idea – it is still visual. What is my idea. Many artists never really have an idea. When I critique them I realize they are looking or waiting for their idea. The activity in the studio is just keeping them busy until something happens. I never thought of myself as one of “those“ artist but now I am wondering. What is my idea outside or apart from a visual language. Should a minimum mural artist have an idea outside of a visual idea – is it possible. End of text.

This room also displays seven similar medium sized paintings on the walls, they all show a variation on a grid pattern.

End of Audio Description.
 
Exhibition label text:

WORKING PROCESS: ARCHIVES AND SKETCHBOOKS

Some of Thomasos’s diaries, sketches, photo albums, slides, and other objects (including the shoes she wore while painting) are presented in display cases and on screens throughout the exhibition. These items have graciously been loaned to the AGO by members of the artist’s family, and give us an intimate view into the methods that were foundational to Thomasos’s working process.

The exhibition includes a selection of photographic materials from her extensive documentation of the indigenous structures she saw during her travels and that came to inspire her approach to abstraction. Similarly, the sketches reveal how her real-world experiences were translated into her personal, painted vocabulary. These sketchbooks are more accurately described as diaries because they contain as much personal reflection on Thomasos’s life as they do artistic exploration. For Thomasos, life and art were inextricably linked.

End of Exhibition label text.

Sketchbooks and Notebooks

Arc
2009
acrylic on canvas
Purchase, with funds from the Women's Art Initiative, 2022
2021/356


Audio description of the work
Hung with its lower edge at bench height, This monumental painting is the only work on this wall. It is 11 feet or almost three and a half meters tall and 20 feet or 6 meters wide. 

It is an abstract painting in a landscape orientation.  

This vigorous canvas uses a kaleidoscope of patterns. It’s colours consist of black, light green, light blue, dark blue, pink, grey and yellow and will be described using a clock face. At its centre is a pod structure (topped by a little red house) and knots of black.  The 8 o’clock to 4 o’clock area is occupied by two mashed together arching pipe-like structures made of grills, grids and black lines over multiple layers of bright colours.  Between 2 o’clock and 4 o’clock, it resembles a ladder and then, the hull of a ship.  From 4 o’clock to 6 o’clock and filling in most of the centre of the clock face is a mound of abstract human skulls. Some of the skulls closest to centre have an additional layer of a sketch of a face overlaid on them.  From 6 o’clock to 8 o’clock is a decaying industrial structure.  The four outside corners of the work are repeated variations of coloured rectangles and squares with the top left corner being brightest with a yellow rectangle overlaid by black vertical bars.   

End of Audio Description.

Exhibition label text:

This vibrant, eleven-by-twenty-foot painting—the same dimensions as Thomasos’s former East Village studio wall— reveals traces of the artist’s body through swoops, strokes, and drips of paint. This was the largest scale in which the artist worked.
Two massive ribcage-like forms dominate the upper half of the composition. The ribcage—an arc in itself—appears sporadically throughout Thomasos’s work. She subtly infuses her work with personal meaning (once revealing that the ribcage motif symbolizes her father), while simultaneously addressing larger political concerns. She again employs the skull motif in this work, but here she renders the forms loosely and colourfully. Spilling into the foreground and commanding our attention, the skulls represent Thomasos’s commitment to calling out systemic racism and structures of oppression. 

End of Exhibition label text.

Untitled (Kingdom Come) 
2011
acrylic on paper
Collection of Dr. Carlyle Farrell
 
Audio description of the work
 
This room contains 7 colourful fast sketches and a table displaying photos and painting materials including shoes.
 
The painted sketches are all in landscape orientation, two and a half feet or three quarters of a meter high by three and a half feet or just over one meter wide and focus on different motifs and approaches to painting a wall with a corner at the centre of it. 
 
The sketch beside the label with the QR code in this room has 4 colours : green, grey, aqua and red and writing marking out elements of the design. Along the top the writing points to floating pod-like structures which have the label “prisons as pods growing green” and “pods of boats , coffins, prisons” between these an area near the centre or room corner is marked  “matrix prison”. Along  the bottom are stair and ladder like structures lying horizontal, they are marked “rectangle roof”, “roof innovation” “roofing device”, “containers of moss growing green” and “green garden moss insulator”, a swath of red along the bottom is labeled “high tech cutting edge”.
 
Across from the sketch is the close end of the long table displaying studio material, it’s furthest end has about 35 medium sized clear plastic containers, of the sort you might find in a grocery store or deli. In them are paint in all of the colours in the room and common colours in the artists work. At the centre of the table is a pair of clog style shoes, about a womens size 7, they are black and have splotches and drips of paint on them. Displayed at the closest end and to be viewed with the wall with the entrance to the room behind you, are 9 photographs of wall works in various stages including the artist in action and shots with a staging area with tables of multiple cans of paint.
 
End of Audio Description.
 
Exhibition label text:

This is one of several preparatory works Thomasos made for Kingdom Come, her site-specific installation at Oakville Galleries in 2011. She marked up the paper with ideas she wanted to convey in her installation; scribbled across the page are words and phrases like “prisons as pods,” “boats, coffins,” “high tech. cutting edge,” “roof innovation,” “green garden,” “moss insulation,” and more. Through this glimpse into her working process, we can see how she came to infuse the mural, a futuristic urban-scape, with issues of class and race. 
 
End of Exhibition label text.

Untitled (Kingdom Come)

Sacrifice 
1989
acrylic on canvas

Gift of The Estate of Denyse Thomasos, through the American Friends of the Art Gallery
of Ontario, Inc., 2022
2022/9

Audio description of the work

This work is a figurative painting in a portrait orientation and is about the size of a queen size mattress at 6 and a half feet or 2 meters tall by 5 and a half feet or 1.7 meters wide.

It depicts a black horse suspended in a white cloth harness dangling beside a mound of skulls piled against an interior wall. 

The colours in this work are hues of browns with beige and yellow tones. 

With it’s body facing right, the dark horse dominates the top half of the painting. The harness has openings for the horse's legs and its tail. In the upper right corner is a high up small deep set window. It’s bright on the other side of it.The horse’s head is down and it has its nose in what is presumably a bag of feed. 

Thin rope dangles down at the far left and connects to a large heavy counterweight which is a long sack that lays on the ground at the bottom left beside a canvas horse trough water bag. On the right side, the skulls are piled to the height of the horse’s knees and cascade downward toward centre. The skulls have dark eye sockets and are various shades, some are black some are bleached completely white which blend in with the back wall.

Hung to the left of the painting is a small framed black and white work which is the same image as an etching. It is signed by the artist.

End of Audio Description.

Exhibition label text:

This early work is among the first major paintings in which Thomasos directly references her research on slavery. To create this dark and confined space, she uses a muted colour palette. A black horse hangs above a pile of human skulls, hoisted in the air by an old-fashioned sling with pulls, straps, and a large counterweight resembling a body bag. The looseness of Thomasos’s approach is evident in her gestural brushstrokes. In this haunting and unnerving scene, the skulls fade into the background as though they are infinite.

Preparatory photographs and a related print are on view nearby.

End of Exhibition label text.

Sacrifice

Portrait of Georgianna (Anne) Sherman and Leonard Cohen
around 1958
gelatin silver print

Audio description of the work

Displayed against a black backdrop, this palm sized black and white photo is in a keepsake tin frame with a shiny metallic relief border. This photobooth photo depicts a young Leonard Cohen with his then love interest Anne.  The couple in their 20’s take up the bottom two thirds of the photograph. Cohen is on the right and looks directly at the camera, his mouth open in the process of a smile. On the left is Anne in profile. She is in front of Cohen and  her forehead touches his temple.  She is a white woman with straight brown shoulder length hair held back by a kerchief worn as a hairband. She has high cheekbones and wears lipstick and a light shirt. She smiles as she looks. He is a white man and his dark hair is worn short. He has a five o’clock shadow and wears a collared knit shirt which is undone. 

In this area depicting Cohen’s early life this plexiglass topped display table shows a collection of writing and other artifacts. Also in this case is a sample of Cohen’s social network and community including a photo of Cohen with his lifetime friend, Morton Rosegarden. The documents include personal letters to his mother from summer camp, a school report card, and a letter from his camp counselor.

 
End of Audio Description.

Exhibition label text:

Cohen’s first serious love affair was with Georgianna Sherman, whom he referred to as Anne or Annie. They met at Columbia University in New York City, where Cohen was pursuing graduate studies in literature and Sherman was a program coordinator. The innocence of their young love is captured in this gem-like, framed photo-booth portrait. Their relationship ended due to Cohen’s strong resistance to settling down, but he continued to write to Sherman and send poems such as the following, which was published in Selected Poems: 1956–1968:


For Anne 

(Audio of Leonard Cohen)

With Annie gone,
Whose eyes to compare
With the morning sun? 

Not that I did compare,
But I do compare
Now that she’s gone.

End of Exhibition label text.

2 Portrait of Georgianna (Anne) Sherman and Leonard Cohen

THE NEWS series 
2017  
acrylic on canvas  
 
Nine equally sized circle shaped paintings each with a two foot or 50 cm diameter displayed in a grid of three rows of three comprise this work. They use a bright neon palette of pinks, blues, greens and yellows; these are also a typical colour palette in KAWS’s depictions of graphic or cartoon-inspired works. Kaws uses opposing colours to create contrasts. 
  
These round canvases show layers of motifs used by KAWS. Each canvas is like a closeup of another work, in a way drawing focus to a particular aspect of something larger. They are dynamic and playful. Most of them have black outlined eyeballs that have x’d out pupils which take up half or more of the canvas. A third have eyelids and a couple have eyelashes. There is a tongue and digits of a hand and most have a line or wave of colour at the centre. They do not form an image when viewed all together, rather they present a detail that serves as the focal point for each canvas. 

On each canvas KAWS plays with optical illusions, the 3D effect of which can become apparent for many people if looking at the works with a fixed gaze. This is accomplished through the subtle addition of shadows which are painted on. These shadows create a sense of depth and aspects of the painting appear to pop out from the canvas.

THE NEWS series

UNTITLED (HARING) 
1997  
acrylic on existing advertising poster  

This large portrait orientation work is a painting done on a black and white poster. The original poster features a photograph of artist Keith Haring.  
 
In this framed work the height of an average person and 4 feet wide Haring is captured larger than life from the waist up. He is in profile facing left, drawing on a blank area on the left of a subway ad displayed inside a subway station. Haring is a white man with short curly mid-tone hair. He wears glasses and a leather jacket with the word champion on a patch on his left sleeve.  
 
He is drawing with chalk onto a dark background with his right hand. The drawing resembles both a cowboy hat and a UFO, and he is connecting it to a pyramid with a series of vertical dashes. On the right the ad appears to say, “now roast without risk” above a photo of a dark roast turkey. 
 
KAWS has painted onto this poster in an uncomplicated cartoonish style. Here he has added a character named “Bendy”. Bendy looms over Haring’s shoulder as he works. Bendy is a yellow creature with a big head with x’s for eyes, commas for nostrils and grey crossbones shaped protrusions. Bendy’s head narrows to a serpentine body which wraps under Haring’s right arm and around his body once and through his open left hand held at waist height as if Haring is grasping onto its tail directly in front of him.
  
KAWS has signed the work with the year “97” and a copyright symbol and written what looks to be Keith Haring’s name but only the Keith is visible. 
 
This work is hung in between two other pieces which are existing advertising posters that KAWS painted over.

UNTITLED (HARING)

KAWS in Galleria Italia
Sculpture in Wood
KAWS
born Jersey City, New Jersey, United States, 1974

These sculptures are situated in Galleria Italia, a city-block-long 4 meter or 14 foot wide east/west thoroughfare in the Gallery building. There is a two storey window wall on the north side and warm brown coloured wood paneling on the south. Although they are placed without barriers the works are not intended to be touched and a recommended distance to be held of 1 meter or three feet is indicated.
  
At a short distance from the passageway between the Signy Eaton gallery and the ramp on the western end of Galleria Italia is the first of three playful works called FINAL DAYS, the second is called ALONG THE WAY and the third, AT THIS TIME. All three larger than life size statues feature the character KAWS has dubbed COMPANION. 

The sculptures are solid, and glossed to a high shine with a veneer finish, giving them a silky appearance. They show wood grain and a vertical rectangle assembly much like a hardwood floor.  

The statue figures are smooth with slightly rotund torsos and perfectly round legs. Their short gloves have a bulge at the cuff, and their hands have three fingers and a thumb. They wear smooth rounded shoes that bulge above the ankle. The letter X motif is also carved on the backs of their gloves and tops of their shoes. With its cartoonish gloves, oversized shoes, and large-buttoned shorts, it bears an intentional resemblance to Walt Disney Studios mascot Mickey Mouse. The notable exception is the mouse head, which in the “COMPANION” character is replaced with a “soft skull” and crossbones and carved X’s for eyes. In these sculptures, KAWS’s ”Companion” figures veer toward the human in their poses and their implied pathos. 

The first work diagonally faces us at the left of the walkway near to the window wall.

FINAL DAYS
2014
Afromosia wood

Here, the character of “COMPANION” is slightly taller than average person standing height and uniquely has a small cottonball shaped tail, and does not wear gloves or shoes or have buttons on its shorts. It steps forward on its left leg with arms extended.  Its arms are held wide to the side with palms vertical and fingers slightly curled reaching in joy or perhaps stretching for balance as it moves.    

The next sculpture stands 35 feet further east up against the south wall and faces the windows. 

ALONG THE WAY
2013
Afromosia wood
 
This 8 feet tall and 6 feet wide statue is wood with a black finish. It has two “COMPANION” figures who stand side by side as one supports the other. The figure on the right is completely limp from mid back up and appears zapped of energy, strength or both; it uses it’s right arm to hold onto the supporting figure’s shoulder. The supporting figure braces the limp figure by leaning its body towards it. The supporting figure also holds it’s left hand on the small of the limp figures back in a consoling gesture.  
 
30 feet further and centred in the walkway is the last physical statue towards the middle of Galleria Italia. It is placed nearest to the window wall and faces us. 

AT THIS TIME
2013
Afromosia wood
 
The largest COMPANION character statue is a medium brown wood colour and stands nearly 8 and a half feet tall.
  
The figure stands feet together, body slightly bent backwards with its head tilted up and back. Elbows wide, COMPANION’S gloved hands reach up and shroud its face.

Sculpture In Wood

MAN’S BEST FRIEND  
2014 
acrylic on paper 
 
This work is a massive gridded rectangle of 50 black and white line drawings. The width of the work is about 3 king size mattresses and it is almost one and a half mattresses high nearly reaching the Gallery ceiling.  Each framed drawing is 22 inches tall and 18 inches wide. The grid is composed of two dimensional line drawn characters from Peanuts which resemble Snoopy, a familiar comic strip character which is a Black-spotted white beagle and Snoopy‘s friend, a small bird named Woodstock. In each of the close-ups the character’s eyes are replaced by x’s, in KAWS’s trademark X shape. Recognizable in the paintings are: the spiky feathers on the top of Woodstock’s head, Snoopy’s water bowl, the side of Snoopy’s head and floppy letter U shaped ear, Snoopy‘s short pointy tail and back foot as he walks upright, the top of Snoopy‘s head with a Mountie hat on it, his black dot of a nose, and his up-curving-line wide smile and various extreme close-ups of his eyes marked as an X.  
 
The wall on which this work is hung and two adjacent walls on either side are covered in outsized black lines that look as if they were made with a giant black pen that leapt off of one of the drawings and danced around on the walls with explosive energy. Nearby on either side of the work are sculptures called SHARE and TAKE.  On the left is SHARE. SHARE features KAWS’s “Companion” Character standing holding another character dubbed “BFF” which is toy sized and dangles from it’s left hand like a stuffed animal. BFF is bright blue and resembles Sesame Street muppets like Cookie Monster or Elmo. It has bulging eyes atop it’s head with x’s for pupils a round yellow nose and a fuzzy frame like a soft toy. On the right of the grid of drawings, in the opposite corner, the sculpture titled TAKE swaps the two characters; a large BFF stands and clutches a small toy sized COMPANION character to its chest.

MAN’S BEST FRIEND

GOOD INTENTIONS 
2015 
bronze and paint 
Collection of the Madison Group, Courtesy Corkin Gallery
 
GOOD INTENTIONS  is a sculpture, presenting two identical figures which stand closely side by side on a low riser against the wall. The one on the right stands at 7 feet tall.The one on the left is smaller reaching the right figure’s waist and hides, childlike, behind it’s leg. They are various shades of matte grey and white. 

The features and style of these figures are those of a character which KAWS has dubbed quote “COMPANION” . With its white cartoonish gloves, oversized shoes, and large-buttoned shorts, it bears an intentional resemblance to Walt Disney Studios mascot Mickey Mouse. The notable exception is the mouse head, which in the “COMPANION” character is replaced with a white “soft skull” and grey crossbones with black X’s for eyes.

The figures are smooth with slightly rotund torsos and perfectly round legs. They wear brownish grey shorts with two palm sized circles in the front like buttons where suspenders might attach. Their short gloves have a bulge at the cuff,  and their hands have three fingers and a thumb. They wear smooth rounded shoes that bulge above the ankle. 
 
The taller figure on the right stands with its right foot slightly forward. From behind, the smaller figure holds onto the taller figure’s right leg , threading its hand between the taller figure’s legs and leaning in as a child might do. The taller figure twists to hold its right hand behind the smaller figure’s head, shielding it or pulling it close in what could be perceived as a protective gesture. 
 
These two figures in KAWS’s “COMPANION” character style, share signature traits with other characters in the KAWS Family: Letter X’s etched into their heads instead of eyes and the same X motif on the backs of their gloves and tops of their shoes. Their large heads are in the style of a cartoon skull with two divots for nostrils and knobby “crossbone” protrusions on the sides of their heads. At the bottom of their heads they have 4 rounded bumps with teeth-like gaps. 
 
In the room around them KAWS‘s “Kimpsons” characters are displayed. These are liberal appropriations of characters from the popular long running tv show The Simpsons which are instantly recognizable. The Kimpsons have X’s for eyes and other traits KAWS has created that make up his signature style.

GOOD INTENTIONS

The AGO is home to the Thomson Collection of Ship Models: over 130 examples of miniaturized ships spanning hundreds of years of maritime history.

One of the most important models in the collection is George Stockwell’s (1729-1805) 1774 model of the Bristol. Designed in 1768 and completed in 1775, the Bristol was a 50-gun fourth-rate ship of the line built for the Royal Navy amidst England’s war to suppress the independence movement in its American colonies.

Image credit:
British fourth-rate two-decker 50-gun warship: Bristol (detail)
1774
George Stockwell, (British, 1729-1805)
Georgian Model, scale1:48
The Thomson Collection
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto

Conditions on board the hulk and a POW warns of the dangers of gambling.

A Prisoner of War (POW) orientates a new prisoner and excerpts from a POW’s memoir.

Why the Bristol became a prison hulk.

Tree of Life 
1985
acrylic on canvas tarpaulin with metal grommets
Private collection
All images © Keith Haring Foundation

This large painting is hung in landscape orientation and is approximately 10’ high x 12’ wide. It is created in Haring’s instantly recognizable style which repeats brightly coloured and stylised shapes outlined in black . Tree of Life is a painting of a large green tree contrasted against a bright pink background, underneath it, four yellow dancing figures are shown from the waist up. It is mounted directly to the wall with screws through grommets, 13 across and 11 high.

The top two thirds of the painting are taken up by the trees leaves which sprout off two main branches that split off at the trunk. The branches corkscrew, as do twiggy offshoots. Each offshoot results in either an oval leaf shape with one line down the centre indicating the fold of the leaf shape or, sprouts a similar shape with an added round head and pumping arms with rounded hands on the ends. In total there are 9 tree leaf figures with arms bent at elbows and raised up and there are 12 leaves. The crown of the tree is painted so that it fills up the canvas giving it a rectangle shape. Outlining the tree leaves and bodies, are stacks of dashes which indicate movement and seem to cause the tree to visually quiver, vibrate and shake in a chorus of celebratory movement. Filling up all the available space around these shapes, Haring adds another familiar element. Straight black lines radiate outward around the heads of the tree leaf figures, using a visual shorthand for what could be interpreted as awareness, enlightenment, anger,  confusion or something else. The following exhibition wall quote speaks to this: “I am interested in making art to be experienced and explored by as many individuals as possible, with as many different individual ideas about the given piece with no final meaning attached.” Keith Haring.  

Spread out in the lower third of the work are the head, torso and arms of four larger figures, two on each side of the tree trunk. Their arms are raised up with elbows bent, motion lines in effect. Their yellow bodies are filled in with a pattern of brighter orange squares. In the centre of their round heads in face position is a single black “x” shape.

Some of Haring’s favorite party music can be heard emanating from a nearby room which celebrates his use of Day Glo paints. Day-Glo colors are shades of orange, pink, green, and yellow which are so bright that they seem to glow.

The walls outside this room and in close proximity to Tree of Life are vertically striped in orange paint and pink Dayglo paint. They back a pair of architectural columns that Haring created and painted in a similar style. 

Also close by is a large triangular canvas entitled, “A Pile of Crowns for Jean-Michel Basquiat”, in which Haring pays homage to his contemporary, artist Jean Michel Basquiat. Haring has painted Basquiat’s signature symbol, a three pointed crown, in a triangular mound of crowns. It has black lines emanating outward around the pile. He includes a small letter c copyright symbol in the lower right corner of this work.

Tree of Life

Untitled
1984
acrylic and enamel on canvas
The Broad Art Foundation, Los Angeles
All images © Keith Haring Foundation
 
During the 1980s, wealth inequality in the United States grew significantly under Ronald Reagan’s neoliberal trickle-down economics policies known as Reaganomics. Haring criticized greed and capitalism in several works featuring the image of the “capitalist pig.” This tarp painting portrays a pig spewing money-green vomit made up of computers, televisions, clocks, airplanes, and other modern-day objects. The green bile pools on the ground from which little figures climb, suckling the sickly pig’s teats. This work is a monstrous depiction of the struggle of production in an era when everything was deemed consumable.

Untitled

Untitled
1985
Acrylic and oil on canvas 
Courtesy of The Parker Foundation 
All images © Keith Haring Foundation

Haring grew up and came out as a gay man during a time that encouraged increased freedom of sexual expression, largely fuelled by the counterculture, women’s rights, and gay liberation movements of the 1960s and 1970s. By the early 1980s, a new countermovement emerged that was led by conservative politicians and the religious right. Simultaneously, the AIDS epidemic was growing. 

Painted in 1985, this untitled work responds to these realities, showing a fiery hellscape of sexual aggression and torture. The theme of hell—often depicted with scenes of uninhibited sexuality—has been addressed throughout art history, from Auguste Rodin’s The Gates of Hell (1880–1917) to Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights (1500s). Haring’s version remains true to his signature line, while also depicting a cast of human and animal figures as well as Christian symbols such as frogs, serpents, and angels.

The Great White Way 
1988 
acrylic on canvas
The Keith Haring Foundation 
All images © Keith Haring Foundation

Stretched in the shape of a penis, this massive painting is a critical visualization of what author bell hooks described as “imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.” The pink phallus is decorated with black lines that make up an intricate scene of weapons, violence, torture, and other abuses of power—a visual representation of the problems of Euro-American society. Haring’s title implies the white supremacist ideology underpinning these activities. The painting shows a phallocentric world in which profit and power in the name of “good” and God are used as tools of oppression. The Great White Way is a prime example of what is perhaps Haring’s greatest skill: the ability to make something look like shallow fun—in this case, a massive, cartoonish, pink, candy-striped penis—while simultaneously speaking truth to some of society’s foremost tyrannies.

The Great White Way

Untitled
1988
acrylic on canvas
Private collection
All images © Keith Haring Foundation

This untitled work shows a human figure struggling to walk up a staircase while carrying a massive egg tied to its back. The egg is cracked and a sperm with devil horns bursts from its shell. The painting speaks profoundly to the AIDS epidemic that took the lives of so many within Haring’s community, including his own. Using monumental scale, a palette drained of colour, and graphic imagery, Haring represented the impossible weight of the AIDS crisis.

Rowing

Writer, activist and curator, Lucy Lippard discusses the monograph she wrote in 1976 about her good friend and artist, Eva Hesse.

AGO Podcasts

Lucy Lippard - On Eva Hesse

Yale University Professor and preeminent Jewish culture critic, Benjamin Harshav discusses the life and times of Marc Chagall.

Benjamin Harshav - Marc Chagall and his Times

Camille Paglia takes a chronological look at the paintings, sculptures, architectural styles, performance pieces, and digital art that have defined and transformed our visual world.

Camille Paglia - Brown Bag Lunch Series

King presents the dramatic history behind the creation of Claude Monet's legendary water lily paintings, and, in the process, presents a compelling and original portrait of one of our most beloved artists.

Ross King -  Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies

Theaster Gates speaks on his exhibition, How to Build a House Museum, which uses music, dance, signage, video, artworks and archival documents – many related to the Black and queer experience – to explore how and what museums communicate.

Theaster Gates – Artist Talk

Renowned philosopher and political theorist, Charles Taylor, considers how attitudes toward religion influence what we understand about modernity and culture.

Charles Taylor - Religion, the Spiritual and Art

Sarah Greenough, Senior Curator of Photographs, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC explores Georgia O’Keeffe’s legendary personal and aesthetic partnership with Alfred Stieglitz.

Sarah Greenough - My Faraway One: The Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz

Exploring ten of today’s most exciting contemporary artworks created by ten artists over a span of fifteen years, Israel reveals the fascinating stories behind each artwork and connects them to larger social and artistic contexts.

Matthew Israel - The Big Picture

Rebecca Belmore’s Wave Sound sculptures encouraged people to pause and listen to the wind and waterways. Listen to soundscapes recorded at the three locations: Lake Minnewanka’s shoreline in Banff National Park (Alberta); Lake Superior’s ridge at Pukaskwa National Park (Ontario, near Ojibways of the Pic River First Nation); and Green Point’s seaside cliffs in Gros Morne National Park (Newfoundland).

Lake Minnewanka’s shoreline in Banff National Park (Alberta)

Richard Tuttle in conversation with Michelle Jacques, Associate Curator, Contemporary Art, and Georgiana Uhlyarik, Assistant Curator, Canadian Art.

Richard Tuttle on Agnes Martin

Peter Doig talks about his work with the AGO’s Director of Exhibitions, Bruce Ferguson.

Art Gallery of Ontario

Peter Doig in conversation with Bruce Ferguson

What inspired photographer Edward Burtynsky and filmmakers Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier to create an expansive art project exploring the Anthropocene? 

What does “Anthropocene” even mean? Why should we care? Hear these three world-renowned artists as you’ve never heard them before in this special in-depth interview with host Sarain Fox. 

For more information:

The Anthropocene exhibition
www.ago.ca
www.gallery.ca 
The Anthropocene Project: www.theanthropocene.org   

This episode was produced by Nadia Abraham, Shiralee Hudson Hill and Matthew Scott at the Art Gallery of Ontario. For more information on the podcast and the Anthropocene exhibition, visit our website: www.ago.ca.

Episode 01 - Art in the Anthropocene: Interview with the Artists

World-renowned photographer Edward Burtynsky and filmmakers Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier converse with AGO Director of Public Programs Devyani Saltzman about Anthropocene, their powerful series of new photographs, large-scale murals augmented by film extensions, film installations and augmented reality (AR) installations, that take us to places we are deeply connected to – but normally never see. Informed by scientific research, powered by aesthetic vision, inspired by a desire to bear witness, they reveal the scale and gravity of our impact on the planet.

Anthropocene with Edward Burtynsky, Jennifer Baichwal and Nichlas de Pencier

The Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto is one of North America's leading art collections. Come visit and experience more than 4,000 artworks across 110 galleries. Visit https://ago.ca

Art Gallery of Ontario

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