Kieth Haring in the early years with Paulee Zance

TI is feeling a great nostalgia for the very NEW YORK visuals of the Haring era which makes the imagery from this exhibit all the more timely.

The Palm Springs Art Museum announced today that it will be the exclusive venue for the major exhibition Against All Odds: Keith Haring in the Rubell Family Collection. Organized in collaboration with the Palm Springs Art Museum by Mark Coetzee, Director of the Rubell Family Collection and adjunct curator for the exhibition, it will run from November 8, 2008 to January 18, 2009. This marks the first of other future partnerships between the two museums involving a range of initiatives.

The exhibition presents work Haring produced after the period of his early mural and graffiti art. Included in the exhibition are 70 paintings, drawings and one sculpture spanning from works he created for his first gallery exhibition in 1982 to others made closer to his death in 1990 at the age of 31. The exhibition also includes 33 works by other artists who were important friends and artistic peers in Haring’s life, such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Francesco Clemente, George Condo, Tseng Kwong Chi, and Andy Warhol. Contextualized by the art of his associates, Haring’s colorful and playful, yet equally powerful, acidic work records the lively engagement of art and culture that represented a key aspect of the New York art scene of the 1980s.

“Keith Haring began a very close relationship with the Rubell family early in his career and the Rubell Family Collection was able to acquire one of the most significant collections of Haring’s work in the world,” said Mark Coetzee. “Drawn exclusively from our collection, the exhibition celebrates a new and exciting relationship between the Palm Springs Art Museum and the Rubell Family Collection.”

“We are honored to be the exclusive venue for this exhibition from the great Rubell Family Collection,” said Steven Nash, Executive Director of the Palm Springs Art Museum. “The Rubell family has an amazing collection of work by Haring and his friends. Their staff in consultation with ours have put together an excellent exhibition that we are privileged to make available to West Coast audiences.”