“Part of the reason that I’m not having trouble facing the reality of death,” said Keith Haring before he died in 1990, “is that it’s not a limitation, in a way. It could have happened any time and it is going to happen to someone any time. If you live your life according to that, death is irrelevant. Everything I’m doing right now is exactly what I want to do.”
We read those words standing in front of Haring’s triptych The Life of Christ that sits on an alter in one of the smaller worship spaces in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. You will find a photograph of the piece at on-emotions.com.
Placed side by side, Haring’s triptych and words he said before he died, offer visitors a poignant reminder that the finite amount of time we have can be perceived as either limiting or freeing.
Death for Haring was the latter and provided the motivation and framework to do what he wanted to do with the time he had left.
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