Keith Haring

Untitled (Boxers), 1987

Two points of focus were crucial to the start of the twenty year old Keith Haring’s artistic career: the heroes of Pop Art in the 1960s, Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein and, above all, Andy Warhol (with whom Haring was close friends from 1983 onwards) and Alexander Calder’s and Jean Tinguely’s sculptural work. The boxers on Marlene-Dietrich-Platz in Potsdamer Platz, Berlin, first and foremost convey a sense of aggression, until you discover the playful element of these colorful fighters, including the visual pun on hole-in-the-head, hole-in-the-stomach. Untitled (Boxers) is one of the first group of scultpures that were created in Germany in 1987, and offers convincing proof that Haring is master of the new medium.