In conjunction with the exhibition Keith Haring: Art Is for Everybody, the Walker invited the New Yorker writer Hilton Als to curate a film series responding to the life and art of Haring. Investigating an amalgamation of influences and connections through cinema, the series traces a journey through the long-lost NYC that Haring was such a beloved part of. On June 21, Als will visit the Walker to introduce Portrait of Jason by Shirley Clarke, the first film in the series.
“Like many young artists who grew up in the nineteen sixties and seventies, Haring was as entranced by the show business in serious art—as exemplified by his high regard for Andy Warhol—as he was by the art in show biz,” Als said. “This series not only touches on Haring’s interest in race and queerness, but the diva as film auteur, and the glamour and danger inherent in the worlds where art, fashion, and politics converge.”
Als has been a staff writer at the New Yorker since 1994 and has received numerous awards for his work, including the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism (2017). His second book, White Girls, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the winner of the Lambda Literary Award in 2014.
Radiant Waves: Film and the Art of Keith Haring curated by Hilton Als
Friday, June 21–July 27, 2024
Walker Cinema
Portrait of Jason by Shirley Clarke
Friday, June 21, 7 pm
$15 ($12 Walker members and seniors), free for students
“I am doing what I want to do, and it’s a nice feeling that somebody’s taking a picture of it!”—Jason Holliday
Hustler and nightclub artist Jason Holliday was a figure whose life intersected with the superstar scene of Warhol’s Factory. Avant-garde filmmaker Shirley Clarke filmed him all night in her penthouse at the Chelsea Hotel. With a drink in hand, Holliday delivers a series of performative monologues and the occasional cabaret number. Revolutionary and complicated, then and now, Clarke’s portrait is a potent reminder of what the world was like for an openly gay Black man in the heat of the Civil Rights movement and just before the Stonewall Uprising. 1967, US, 35mm, 105 min.
Introduced by Hilton Als
Andy Warhol: A Documentary by Ric Burns
Saturday, June 22, 2024, 1 pm
$15 ($12 Walker members, seniors, and students)
“Andy’s life and work made my work possible. Andy set the precedent for the possibility for my art to exist.”—Keith Haring
As a friend, mentor, and collaborator, Andy Warhol was deeply influential to Keith Haring. Ric Burns’s comprehensive documentary delves into five decades of the iconic pop artist’s life, from his early years to his breakthrough soup-can paintings to the Factory years, tracing the arc of his rise to household-name fame. Narrated by Laurie Anderson, this portrait combines insider and critical interviews with rarely seen, extensive archival material. 2006, US, digital, 4 hours with an intermission.
Eyes of Laura Mars by Irvin Kershner
Friday–Saturday, June 28–29, 7 pm
$15 ($12 Walker members, seniors, and students), free for students on Friday
Filmed in a dirty and dangerous late ’70s Manhattan, this campy neo-noir thriller stars Faye Dunaway and Tommy Lee Jones in a decadent disco-era murder mystery. When Laura Mars’s friends and models start turning up dead, the glamorous and provocative photographer experiences stressful bouts of clairvoyance during which she can “see” through the eyes of the killer. Working with a sketchy police detective, this chic fashion-world star is drawn into a suspenseful exploration of the uncanny connections between her voyeuristic images and gritty “real life” violent crimes. Written by John Carpenter, featuring photographs by Helmut Newton, and a theme song by Barbra Streisand. US, 1978, digital, 104 min.
Downtown 81 by Edo Bertoglio
Friday–Saturday, July 12–13, 7 pm
$15 ($12 Walker members, seniors, and students), free for students on Friday
“I didn’t start doing graffiti until two years after I got to New York. Jean-Michel Basquiat was one of my main inspirations for doing graffiti. For a year I didn’t know who Jean-Michel was, but I knew his work.”—Keith Haring
19-year-old Jean-Michel Basquiat stars as an artist in a once-lost film immortalizing NYC’s 1980s downtown scene. Over a day and a long dream-like night, Basquiat wanders the city, running into fellow street artists Lee Quiñones and Fab 5 Freddy, and catching musical performances by Kid Creole and the Coconuts, James White and the Blacks, and Arto Lindsay with DNA. Legend has it that Debbie Harry, who played a fairy princess in the film, bought one of Basquiat’s paintings after the filming ended. US, 1981/2000, 35mm, 72 min.
35mm print from Metrograph Pictures
Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell by Matt Wolf
Friday–Saturday, July 19–20, 7 pm
$15 ($12 Walker members, seniors, and students), free for students on Friday
A part of Keith Haring’s interconnected art world, Arthur Russell was a cellist, experimental composer, disco producer, and music director for The Kitchen. Frequenting Lower Manhattan’s underground dance clubs and lofts, Russell engaged in the full breadth of the music scene, playing freely with its transcendent possibilities.
Like so many of his generation, Russell died during the AIDS crisis before the full influence of his creative work was seen. Filmmaker Matt Wolf incorporates archival footage and commentary from Russell’s family, friends, and closest collaborators in the moving documentary. 2008, US, DCP, 71 min.
How to Survive a Plague by David France
Friday–Saturday, July 26–27, 7 pm
$15 ($12 Walker members, seniors, and students), free for students on Friday
Keith Haring was a member and supporter of ACT UP from the late 1980s until he died of AIDS-related complications in 1990 at age 31. The film honors the rise of the AIDS activist community in New York City, led by participants who refused to die without a fight. Facing the injustice of a crisis largely ignored by government and health organizations, courageous HIV-positive community members led protests to raise awareness of the disease and demand humane treatment. Containing footage shot over a decade by participants, the documentary remembers the fight to make AIDS survival possible. Featuring the songs of Arthur Russell. 2012, US, DCP, 111 min.
ABOUT HILTON ALS
Hilton Als is an award-winning journalist, critic, and curator. He has been a staff writer at the New Yorker since 1994. Prior to the New Yorker, Als was a staff writer for the Village Voice and an editor-at-large at Vibe. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism (2017), Yale’s Windham-Campbell Literature Prize (2016), the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism (2002–03), and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2000). His first book, The Women, was published in 1996. His next book, White Girls, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the winner of the Lambda Literary Award in 2014. His most recent book, My Pinup, a meditation on love and of loss, of Prince and of desire, was published in November 2022. He is currently a teaching professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and has also taught at Columbia University’s School of the Arts, Princeton University, Wesleyan University, and the Yale School of Drama.