Keith Haring Journals (25 page)

Go to see Hervé Di Rosa’s show. Disappointed, but I wasn’t expecting much. I’m sure it’s possible to know the difference between good and bad painting. Not much of interest anywhere right now. Basquiat and Condo are the only ones I think are really good.

Had lunch at (my favorite) restaurant near Beaubourg. Probably my favorite because I know what to order on the menu and the waitresses aren’t
so
rude. Met Julia at hotel to go over list for my birthday dinner. Kwong is out researching restaurants to find a suitable “background atmosphere.”

5:00 PM: Interview with Otto Hahn for
Beaux-Arts
magazine in hotel.

Interrupted by George Condo’s phone call inviting me and Juan to dinner at Claude Picasso’s house.

Interview went O.K. Forever trying to explain the same things. It seems people always “understand” after asking the right questions. Each interview helps me understand more about what I think myself.

Dinner at Claude and Sydney Picasso’s house was interesting—fun. They had KH magnets on their refrigerator. It must be incredible to eat, sleep, watch TV, etc., around these paintings.

I guess the family always gets the best work. Lots of pieces I’ve never seen before. Picasso seems endless. Amazing how many things one can produce if you live long enough. I mean, I’ve barely created ten years of serious work. Imagine 50 years. The progress and evolution is remarkable. I would love to live to be 50 years old. Imagine . . . hardly seems possible.

Not for me . . .

9:00 AM—Fly to Munich with Kwong and Juan.

We meet people from Luna Luna at airport and drive to hotel (Holiday Inn) in Augsburg and then lunch outside with tulips and beer, watching busboys with tight pants and cute little butts.

Then immediately to work on the carousel. It was about a half hour’s drive from Augsburg to a little town in the country. Reminds me of Kutztown area. It turned out the guy who was working on the carousel (Peter Petz) makes them for a living and sends them all over the world. He also designs other amusement park rides and paints and restores old ones. The house and surroundings were incredible. Like a place I always dreamed of when I was a kid. Twelve-foot-tall King Kongs, monsters, pieces of carousels, statues, etc., etc. The family turned out to be really nice.

The carousel was great, except for a few “unknown” characters I never drew and a change in my design of the top panel that they said they “found in my book.” The carousel people say Andrew Heller (Luna Luna) told them to change it and Heller says they did it themselves. Eiwther is possible. I didn’t use the “mouth” character, and I ignored their idea of adding a snake to my pattern, by doing abstract lines instead.

They added lines through stomachs because they said they saw a drawing like that in my book. (So what?)

Anyway, besides this, everything there went great. I painted the inside part of the carousel with cartoon characters and did the top border with abstract lines.

We finished painting at around eight and ate a meal outside prepared by Peter Petz’s girlfriend—nieces, ex-sister-in-law and nephews. It was really beautiful. It’s moments like this that I’m really glad to be doing what I do. The setting was amazing, surreal and peaceful and the “family” sort of adopted us. “We decided we love you,” which is pretty amazing for the first day you meet somebody. It’s amazing to be working with people who really respect you and go way out of their way to make you as comfortable as possible. A contrast from Paris!

Later we drove into Augsburg and went to the carnival there, where Peter had painted a lot of the rides, etc. It was incredibly beautiful and clean and well kept. (Like Coney Island is supposed to look.) Kwong Chi was great in the Fun House—screaming hysterically, becoming the main attraction.

For me and Juan the main attraction was all the American Army boys. Seems there’s a huge base nearby so there were lots of humpy black boys. A taste of New York City! We rode the bumper cars and bumped a few hairless muscular brown bodies.

Fireworks for May 1st! Great display—very impressive.

Then return to Holiday Inn (the most depressingly American hotel we’ve stayed in so far) and called Tony. He’s still worried because the Art World gossip hotline still says I have AIDS. He said Christo’s wife heard it and asked if it was true. People are really too much. They have to talk about something. I’m tired of having to explain to Tony how I’m taking care of myself. If anything causes me tension and stress it’s him, not staying up late or working hard. I live for work.

Return to finish painting carousel. Today I outlined all the characters and chose their placement on the carousel.

Final choices of lights, colors, etc. Lots of pictures with the “family” and friends.

9:00 PM: Drive to Munich.

Kwong has his “guide,” so he has chosen several bars and discos that are listed as “mixed and young crowd.” Hardly true. Either straight or full of German queens. Yecch! We got turned away from NY-NY because the queen at the front door didn’t like my sneakers. What a joke. NY-NY—she’s obviously never been there.

More tacky bars and finally home in a taxi with Kwong trying the last chance—the driver.
No luck
.

We have to go to sleep to leave for the airport early because the Pope is coming to Munich tomorrow and “could affect the traffic,” according to the man at the front desk.

12:30: Missed the Pope. No traffic. Fly to Paris and arrive at 2:00 or so.

3:00 PM. I go with Kwong Chi to Le Train Bleu to decorate the cake for my birthday dinner there.

The assistant pastry chef turns out to be extremely cute and shy in a very adorable sort of way. Rosy cheeks and tight pants. Nineteen or 20 years old. We smoked hash before we went (a mistake), but the whole thing turned out to be much more fun than I imagined.

Kwong Chi blew his big chance, I thought. If I was alone in Paris I’d definitely have picked up this one! Or at least tried . . .

Return to hotel and take a nap, a bath and dress for dinner.

The restaurant is inside the train station, but it is apparently a very old, very famous restaurant. Lots of rococo glitz. Very French!

Guests included:

Nice dinner with great toast by Jim Rosenquist. Something like:

There once was an artist named Haring, whose line was never wearing and also daring and also intent on sharing. (For exact transcription, see Kwong Chi.)

After went to Condo’s with Julia, Kwong, Roberto (George’s assistant), Joe Glasco and then Donald showed up complaining about needing more coke and being obnoxious. We went home to try to sleep.

My real birthday. Stayed in bed till 2:00 PM and then got up and went to the Matisse show. Depressing in a funny kind of way. Too many drawings of tits and ass. I’d think he’d get bored. The drawings of just heads or of more “situations” were more interesting. Also, all of the more abstracted simple ones and of course the paper cut-outs are all great. Still something left me with an empty feeling. Walked around a little, but it’s cold and rainy. I’m worried about finishing the Necker mural. If it doesn’t stop raining I don’t know when I’ll do it. It’s also very cold and very windy.

Went back to hotel and read a lot of Joe Orton’s diary.

Fell asleep.

9:00 AM: Wake up to finish mural. It’s not raining, but cloudy and still windy and cold. I convince myself, though, that it’s not as cold as yesterday and less windy.

I go to hospital and the crane has not arrived yet.

Very nervous.

11:30: Crane arrives and I begin to paint the black lines. Juan helps to balance and direct the crane since it is very windy. Wearing gloves and hooded sweatshirt, but it’s too hard to paint wearing a glove. After a while I don’t feel the cold.

Jim Rosenquist visits.

Some press (not much) visits.

Otto Hahn’s wife visits.

I finish at 9:00 PM. Looks great, but it’s always hard to see anything immediately after finishing. Feels good, though.

Eat dinner with Dan Friedman, Kwong and Juan.

Call New York and talk to Tony about painting at auction. It only went for $12,500. It should have been more like $17,000-$20,000 or more. I told Tony I wanted to buy it myself if it went under $15,000. But Julia was over here and we didn’t coordinate in time to have somebody buy it. Not a disaster, but disappointing.

Woken up by telephone calls. Swiss company wants me to design cigarette pack and maybe pick name also.

I doubt it, but ask for proposal in New York City. My collection of “propositions ignored” is one of my favorite files.

Have lunch with Julia and Juan. Julia returns to New York today. Depressing conversation about changing gallery situations. Always the same problems with money. I don’t trust Vrej Baghoomian at all now, either. Bad stories from James Brown about Vrej’s financial games. Always the same story. Getting money that is owed to me is like they are doing me a favor. They’ve got it backwards. I may have to take drastic action and finally start working on my own.

Call Tony. Talk about sculpture being made for Children’s Hospital in Long Island. Should be installed in July. Vrej has left the gallery.

6:30: Return to hospital for the “reception” of my mural. In the meantime, someone has spray-painted slogans on the bottom of the concrete where the mural is painted. Lately there is a strike by medical students in Paris. I was not told the complete story why they are protesting, but I had heard a lot about it. The Minister of Health, M or Mme Balzac, is scheduled to show up for the reception of the mural and some press was expected. So, I assume they wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to get attention. I don’t want to be involved in the politics of this situation, however, I don’t mind the graffiti, since it is several feet below where my mural begins and will probably be removed. The politics are “outside” of my politics for this painting. I painted it for the enjoyment of the sick children in this hospital, now and in the future. Inevitably the mural will outlive the complications of the moment. I don’t think art is always “outside” of politics, but in this case my mural certainly has no bearing on supporting the politics of either side. Its only politics are in support of a creative input into the healing process and an attempt at changing a previously dull, boring building and giving it life. Nobody could argue that that is condoning the politics of the government’s policies to medical students.