Book Description

Against All Odds reproposes Keith Haring as a political artist who incorporated issues around consumerism, drug addiction and AIDS into his concerns, and casts his art as a joyous expression of Nietzsche's "will to power," surmounting cultural malaise with graphic boldness. Haring's relationship with Don and Mera Rubell began early on in his career, when the Rubells visited the Mudd Club (one of New York's earliest discos) in 1981, to see an exhibition of graffiti art which Haring had co-curated. This volume contains the entirety of their collection, much of which is reproduced for the first time, and which is contextualized alongside works by Haring's mentors and friends, Andy Warhol, Francesco Clemente, Jean-Michel Basquiat, George Condo and Tseng Kwong Chi. Mark Coetzee provides a long interview with the Rubells, in which they reminisce on their relationship with Haring.