Keith Haring s Line: Race and the Performance of Desire (Hardcover)

In the thirty years since his death Keith Haring-a central presence on the New York downtown scene of the 1980s-has remained one of the most popular figures in contemporary American art. In one of the first book-length treatments of Haring s artistry Ricardo Montez traces the drawn and painted line that was at the center of Haring s artistic practice and with which the artist marked canvases subway walls and even human flesh. Keith Haring s Line unites performance studies critical race studies and queer theory in an exploration of cross-racial desire in Haring s life and art. Examining Haring s engagements with artists such as dancer and choreographer Bill T. Jones graffiti artist LA II and iconic superstar Grace Jones Montez confronts Haring s messy relationships to race-making and racial imaginaries highlighting scenes of complicity in order to trouble both the positive connotations of inter-racial artistic collaboration and the limited framework of appropriation.