RONALD REAGAN ACCUSED OF TV STAR SEX DEATH (October 22, 1980). Photocopy on wove paper. 215x279 mm, 8½x11 inches. 1980.
Provenance: Collection of Robert Beers, film archivist and member of the Ridiculous Theatrical Company, New York; (with) Ward 5B, New York; private collection, New York.
Haring created newspaper collages from New York Post headline clippings, and using the new medium of the Xerox machine, posted reproductions of these works around New York.
This early Xerox technique in retrieving material from mass media became a shared project for many downtown artists in the early 1980s. Artists such as Jenny Holzer, Jean Michel Basquiat, Kenny Scharf, and Haring himself, experimented with the collage form and continually influenced its potential in content and distribution. From this early experimentation in crossing pop culture with guerilla art, Haring developed and grew his unique iconography.
