A talk by Ricardo Montez, Associate Professor of Performance Studies at the New School

This talk explores the libidinal field of Keith Haring’s art production within New York City, considering the ways in which writing and Haring’s expression of line are connected to cross-racial desire. In his journals, Haring describes writing as means to evacuate his body of desire. What does it mean for Haring to write sexual energy out of himself? Situating Haring’s visual art in relation to the queer writing experiments that inspired his play with meaning and form, the talk considers a queer genealogy that connects Haring’s writing-as-art practice to his collaborators and predecessors, including William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, and Jean Genet. This program is held in conjunction with Apocalypse Sky: Art, AIDS, and Activism in New York City, 1982–1992, on view at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, February 4–August 20, 2023.

Ricardo Montez is an Associate Professor of Performance Studies in the Schools of Public Engagement at the New School where he developed and chairs the curricular programs in Race and Ethnicity and Gender and Sexuality. Prior to his appointment at the New School, he was the Cotsen Postdoctoral Fellow of Race and Ethnicity Studies in the Princeton Society of Fellows. His book, Keith Haring’s Line: Race and the Performance of Desire was published by Duke University Press in 2020.