The Valley. Etching on white wove paper. 252x225 mm; 10x9 inches, full margins. Signed, dated and numbered 48/80 in pencil, lower right. 1989.
Published in Littmann, Keith Haring, Editions on Paper, 1982-1990, Stuttgart, 1997, page 141.
The Valley is a collaboration between Haring, who made 16 separate etchings for the series, and the Beat Era poet and novelist William S. Burroughs, whose text-based "cut-up" method of writing influenced Haring's pictographic style. Reflecting a shift from Haring's more light-hearted early works, The Valley series is dark and menacing, made during the final years of his life when he was living with AIDS. Alongside his Apocalypse series (1988), this series introduces stylistic shifts of more complex compositions and characters such as jesters, masks, skills and martyrs. This series tells the story of the valley people who live in hellish conditions, then rescued by people from the outside world. Haring and Burroughs set up an "us" and "them" narrative in this series, notably around contamination from the valley people. Thus, The Valley series strikes parallels with contemporary crises like the AIDS epidemic and functions as a compelling social commentary.
A portion of Burroughs's corresponding text for this etching reads: "The Press, of course, wallowed in speculation and clamored to be allowed to interview the Valley people and take pictures. They were firmly admonished that the possibility of a virgin soil epidemic imposed emergency conditions. No one but scientists and doctors from the CDC would be allowed access to the Valley people, unless or until there was no danger of an unknown disease agent getting loose in the world's population."
