Sturtevant Haring Untitled '81, 1986

Best known for her repetitions of works by other artists, Sturtevant has recreated an untitled work by Keith Haring from 1981. Her painting captures Haring’s signature human figures and dogs, which are articulated in bold black outlines against a vibrant yellow background. Haring’s distinctive style fuses the graffiti subculture of 1980s New York with the visual language of pop art. It had already become widely recognisable by 1986 when Sturtevant produced her own version of the work, proclaiming ‘Every kid with a lollypop knows Haring.’

Haring, himself, established a complex understanding of the function of repetition within his practice, which resonates with Sturtevant’s own approach to artmaking. Asserting that ‘repetition without a camera (or machine) is not repetition’, Haring recognised the differences that emerge in processes of non-mechanised reproduction. For Sturtevant, who created her repetitions of other artists’ work from memory, these differences provided her with the opportunity to address notions of authorship, authenticity and originality – ideas that underpinned her practice throughout her artistic career.