RESEARCH LOG

Keith Haring: Notes on Paper

by India Jeffes

June 6, 2023

Editorial Note

In her research log, India Jeffes leads us through the history and conservation of one of Keith Haring’s largest works. Titled Amsterdam Notes, this 38-meter drawing was created by Haring on-site at the Stedelijk Museum in 1986. As it has only been exhibited twice before, Jeffes leads us through the difficult yet collaborative efforts that brought about its restoration and installation.

Keith Haring’s Amsterdam Notes will be on display at our Hall of Honor (the IMC Gallery) from 25 May to 5 November, 2023.

The 38-meter-long drawing Amsterdam Notes is one of three large-scale works that Keith Haring created for the Stedelijk Museum as part of his solo show in 1986. Using high-quality sumi ink and paintbrushes to spontaneously craft the piece, Haring painted directly onto paper affixed to the walls of the Stedelijk’s print room, an exhibition space for paper-based works that no longer exists.¹ In its totality Amsterdam Notes gives the impression of a mural despite inherently being a more mobile and fragile artwork. Since it entered the museum’s permanent collection, Amsterdam Notes has only been displayed on one other occasion, over 30 years ago in 1992. Displaying the work again now, in 2023, has required a great deal of creative problem solving behind the scenes, as the project has presented a series of complex technical challenges.

In the Print Room: Making Notes

The difficulties stem from Amsterdam Notes being an on-site artwork with dimensions that suit its original exhibition in the print room. Added to the old building in the 1950s when the museum was under the direction of Willem Sandberg, the print room was made up of three long connecting rooms that wrapped around the staircase with two entryways placed halfway up the steps. During the major 21st century renovations that saw the addition of the new wing, the print room was removed and with it the exact dimensions to show Amsterdam Notes as one continuous eye-level frieze. For its presentation in 1992, the piece was installed high on the walls of the Gallery of Honor (also known as Erezaal), above the doorways. However, the proportions of this gallery have also changed since 1992 with the addition of two extra doorways connecting it to the new wing.

Amsterdam Notes presented in the pre-renovation Gallery of Honor, December 1992. Photo: Archive Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Amsterdam Notes © Keith Haring Foundation.

With the recent restructuring of the Stedelijk’s permanent exhibitions, the Gallery of Honor is now a designated space to highlight specific groups of works from the collection. Only shown twice before, Amsterdam Notes is inevitably one of Haring’s lesser-known works. Even at the time of its original display, it received very little press attention alongside the famous velum artwork that the artist also created at the Stedelijk. In news clippings from 1986, Amsterdam Notes appears only as a footnote to coverage of the exhibition, an absence that further adds to its mystique. The artwork offers a scene that is also quite different to the iconic visuals that most people associate with the artist. Rather than vibrant colors, minimalist linear figures, and a packed composition, the monochromatic Amsterdam Notes features various highly detailed fantasy creatures that are more spaciously arranged across the paper.

Keith Haring drawing Amsterdam Notes in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, March 1986. Photo: Rob Bogaerts, Nationaal Archief / Anefo. Amsterdam Notes © Keith Haring Foundation.

Haring painted these characters in high quality sumi ink that is also used in traditional Japanese calligraphy. Sumi ink is a very stable, carbon-based material, meaning it is not sensitive to light and sticks well to paper with a clean matte finish. This chosen medium is what gives Amsterdam Notes its unique look with bold flowing lines running out into more faded, visible brush strokes. Paint drips, highly characteristic of Haring’s oeuvre, can also be seen throughout the piece, streaming down the paper, and breaching its red acrylic border. Haring completed the entire drawing in one take in March 1986, with no preliminary sketches or preconceived meaning in mind. Indeed, the symbolism in his work was often deliberately left open to infinite interpretations. For Haring, the subconscious response from each and every viewer was just as significant as that of an art critic, curator, or even the artist himself.

Close-up photograph of the second section of Amsterdam Notes. The texture of the lines, the paint drips, staple holes, and cloth hinges (added retrospectively for the 1992 installation) are clearly visible. Photo: Rik Klein Gotink. Archive Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Amsterdam Notes © Keith Haring Foundation.

“There was a room in the stairwell [of the Stedelijk] that ran completely around in a circle. We decided that it was a perfect place for me to do one of my long drawings. I covered all the walls with a long length of paper and did an ink drawing called Amsterdam Notes. I did most of it with Japanese brushes that had very pointy ends, so, unlike many of the early drawings where the lines were the same thickness throughout, this drawing had a different kind of line quality. I was exploring not only the thick consistent cartoon line but also other possibilities of varying widths. It was exhilarating.”—Keith Haring, 1989.²

Insights from the Paper Conservation Department

The Stedelijk’s paper conservation department has been on the front line in confronting the practical challenges of handling an object as physically imposing as Amsterdam Notes. The project to present the work was first put into motion a few years ago when another museum in the Netherlands requested to exhibit the work as part of an exhibition about art activism. A hidden gem in the museum’s depot, Amsterdam Notes had been rolled up and stored in a purpose-built crate that had remained unopened since 1996, when the last conservation checks had been conducted.

In 2021, the paper conservation department unrolled the work completely to take high-resolution photographs and make a condition report. The subsequent treatment of the work in 2022 was logistically more demanding. The entire conservation studio was closed for nearly two weeks, reserved solely for the treatment of Amsterdam Notes. The work was done on the floor, as there were no tables big enough to place it on. Even then, the three thick pieces of paper that make up Amsterdam Notes, each approximately 12 meters long, were too large to be unrolled in their entirety and had to be constantly rolled, moved, and rerolled throughout the treatment.

Unrolling the work for the condition report, 2022. Photo: Femke Segers. Amsterdam Notes © Keith Haring Foundation.

Overall, the condition of the work proved to be remarkably good, with some small staple tears found along the edges where it had been ripped from the wall after its original installation in 1986. There are no marks or stains from previous displays, even though the work was fully accessible to the public when presented in the print room, a space that was too small to include any barriers. This near-pristine state is likely due to its short periods of display, as Haring’s solo exhibition in 1986 ran for just under two months. Once conservation treatment was complete and Amsterdam Notes was determined to be fit for display, the curatorial department finally had the opportunity to schedule its presentation.

The installation of Amsterdam Notes in the Erezaal, May 2023. Photo: India Jeffes. Amsterdam Notes © Keith Haring Foundation.

The next round of technical considerations arose in the Stedelijk’s gallery space, which presented more issues to be tackled by the floor manager and art handlers. To install such a complex work, the Gallery of Honor was fitted with slight physical adjustments and a specialized scrolling contraption was built to allow Amsterdam Notes to be unraveled five meters off the ground. To unroll the object at such a height was simultaneously exciting and somewhat frightening due to the risk of possible damage during the installation, which was a very slow and delicate four-day process. Although it had been done before, in 1992, installation logistics were rarely documented at that time. Fortunately, this year’s presentation has allowed for a wealth of experience and documentation to be gathered in every department from conservation through to curation and finally to the installation and display of Amsterdam Notes.

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Acknowledgements

The information in this research log regarding the history of Amsterdam Notes within the Stedelijk Museum collection was compiled with the help and guidance of Leontine Coelewij, Tessa Rietveld, Monica Marchesi, and Femke Segers. Sources on Keith Haring’s 1986 solo show at the Stedelijk include the exhibition catalogue Paintings, Drawings and a Velum edited by Wim Beeren, Jeffrey Deitch, and Paul Donker Duyvis as well as Chris Reinewald’s 2020 publication The Dutch Adventures of Keith Haring, Jeffrey Deitch’s 2014 monograph Keith Haring, and newspaper clippings from the Stedelijk Museum Archive.

About the Author

India Jeffes is a student in the MA Museum Studies program at the University of Amsterdam, with previous academic experience in History and Political Science. As an intern for the Curatorial and Research department at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam she has worked on various ongoing projects including the presentation of Keith Haring’s Amsterdam Notes in the IMC Gallery.

[1] Photographs of the making of Amsterdam Notes and materials used can be viewed here. This file is included as a research reference, please contact the Haring Foundation for further access and use of these images. Photos: Tseng Kwong Chi, © 1986 Muna Tseng Dance Projects, Inc., New York. Amsterdam Notes, 1986 © Keith Haring Foundation.

[2] Excerpt from the original transcript of John Gruen’s interviews with Keith Haring conducted in 1989 for Keith Haring: The Authorized Biography (1991). Quoted in Jeffrey Deitch’s 2014 monograph Keith Haring, p. 378.