After visiting the Chinese village where generations of his family had lived, sculptor Warren King decided on an ambitious, new body of work: One individual at a time, he would recreate the residents of his grandparents’ community using just cardboard and glue. The life-sized figures help the artist connect with his cultural and ancestral heritages, each its own emotion and moment in time.
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Keith Haring in 1989: “Unfinished Painting”. Haring died few months after and this is his last painting. This is supposed to be a self-portrait. Haring knew he wouldn’t have enough time to finish it. This is one of the saddest but certainly the most powerful thing I’ve ever seen.
to clarify: this is a finished self portrait. haring did know that he would be unable to continue to work; this “unfinished” painting refers to that self-consciously as a visualization of how the aids crisis and government neglect robbed him of his life and future career.
i feel like this distinction is important? there are many artists who died due to hiv/aids and left unfinished work, but haring made this specifically to comment on his impending death. i feel like stating that it’s actually unfinished takes away some of his agency as an artist/activist/pwa and the political power of the work.
(Source: lookingforanepiphany)