Keith Haring Silence=Death (Littman p.152) For Sale

Silence=Death is a silkscreen print created by the artist in 1989. The work is an explicit articulation of the lack of awareness surrounding AIDs, as evidenced by its impactful title. At this late stage in his career – Haring had been diagnosed with the virus a year earlier –  the present image can be seen as the culmination of Haring's practice of art as social activism. 

The garish shock of fuchsia against a black background create a stark visual contrast that is fitting for Haring’s serious subject matter. The pink shape also reclaims an inverted triangle symbol that the Nazis used to label homosexuals in internment camps, but would later be reinvented as a symbol of pride here.  

The iconography of Silence=Death is directly tied to the political moment at the time of its creation. Tightly packed figures traverse the entirety of the image, covering their eyes and ears: a visual metaphor for the wilful blindness and lack of action surrounding the epidemic. Mass media coverage was largely fear-mongering, depersonalising the suffering of individuals and instead focussing on statistics and the incurability of the disease. Haring’s characteristic faceless and genderless figures brilliantly represent an anonymous mass public. By 1984, AIDs had killed more than three thousand Americans, but it wasn’t until 1985 that President Ronald Reagan had addressed the issue of AIDs publicly. Haring’s experience of the disease was felt acutely even before he himself was diagnosed: many of his friends and acquaintances had been lost to AIDs: ‘My friends are dropping like flies and I know in my heart that it is only divine intervention that has kept me alive this long...This is why my activities and projects are so important now.’