Apocalypse (complete set of 10)

A writer and a painter on the end of the world

Apocalypse was the first collaboration between Keith Haring and William S. Burroughs. Published in 1988, it pairs ten pages of Burroughs's free-form prose with ten large screenprints by Haring, each sheet a square 38 inches on a side. Burroughs's text was printed on clear acetate; Haring's images were printed on Museum Board. The prints were made by the New York printer Rupert Jasen Smith and published in New York by George Mulder, in an edition of 90 sets plus 20 artist's proofs and 5 hors commerce sets.

The text is a modern riff on the Book of Revelation. One passage reads: "Neon explosions and tornados flash through ruined cities, volcanoes spew molten colours as the earth's crust buckles and splinters into jigsaw pieces." Another ends on a line often quoted from the portfolio: "Everything is permitted because nothing is true. It is all make-believe, illusion, dream...ART." One account traces the project's roots to a 1980 lecture Burroughs gave in France titled The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

The psychedelic writer Timothy Leary said the collaboration was "like Dante and Titian getting together."

Haring and Burroughs

Keith Haring was born May 4, 1958, in Reading, Pennsylvania, and raised in Kutztown. As a teenager he was involved with the Jesus movement, an experience that left religious imagery lodged in his work. He moved to New York in 1978 to study at the School of Visual Arts, and from December 1980 drew in chalk on blank subway advertising panels, the work that made him famous. In 1986 he opened the Pop Shop in SoHo.

Burroughs, born in St. Louis in 1914, was the Beat writer of Junkie and Naked Lunch who, with Brion Gysin, popularized the cut-up, a method of slicing and rearranging text to make new meaning. In 1978, as a student, Haring attended the Nova Convention in New York, a three-day celebration of Burroughs's work held November 30 to December 2 with readings by Allen Ginsberg, Patti Smith and others. He soon began following the methods in Burroughs and Gysin's book The Third Mind, and the cut-up shaped the pictographic language he developed from 1980.

Accounts differ on when the two men actually met. One gallery account says they did not meet until 1983; an auction catalogue says they met in 1978. A photograph shows them together in Lawrence, Kansas, where Burroughs lived from 1981, in 1987. Haring later said Burroughs was "very into a lot of the world I've depicted, especially in the recent things - sex, mutations, weird science fiction situations."

New York, 1988

Haring had been diagnosed with HIV in 1987 and was diagnosed with AIDS in the autumn of 1988, the year the portfolio was published. AIDS had already been devastating the downtown New York community for years. The images carry that weight: computers, sperm, devils, halos and divine light, read by one gallery as showing "the complexity, struggles, torment and illusory bliss of life at that very time."

Haring repeats a horned 'devil sperm' throughout the series, a warning about the perils of sex, and uses mushroom clouds that tie the AIDS crisis to nuclear catastrophe. He collages found material into the prints: religious images, reproductions of high art and 1950s magazine pictures of children, overrun by his bold line and blocks of primary color. One summary of his work notes that in this collaboration he depicted the virus as demon-like creatures, the number 666 and a mushroom cloud.

It was a busy and public year for him. He opened a Pop Shop in Tokyo in January, painted a mural for the White House Easter Egg Roll in April, and opened a December show in New York he called his most important to date. The first World AIDS Day was observed on December 1, 1988.

Sets on the market

Complete sets come to auction regularly but not often. One market record counts 15 auction sales of the complete set since its first in 2002.

In September 2010 a set numbered 77/90, framed and lacking its original portfolio box, sold in London for £21,250 against an estimate of £10,000 to £15,000. In 2012 a set numbered 82/90 was offered in New York with an estimate of $30,000 to $50,000. Another set, lacking its text and justification pages, sold in London for £35,000 with fees.

The high point came in April 2022, when set 4/90, unframed, sold in New York for $151,200 against an estimate of $100,000 to $150,000. In March 2024 set 67/90, with five plates framed and the rest loose in the original black cloth portfolio and the introduction signed by Burroughs, sold online in London for £88,200 with fees; a market record gives the hammer as £70,000 in March 2024.

Single plates from broken sets also trade on their own, far below the price of a full set.

What makes a complete set

A complete set comprises ten screenprints on Museum Board, each about 38 x 38 inches, signed, dated and numbered out of 90 in pencil by Haring, with the title, Burroughs's text pages printed on acetate or PVC foil, and a justification page. Catalogue descriptions note the artist's and publisher's copyright inkstamps on the reverse and Rupert Jasen Smith's blindstamp. Burroughs signed the introduction in ink. Sets were issued in a black cloth-covered portfolio.

Condition and completeness drive price: sales records distinguish sets with all text pages from sets lacking them, framed from loose, and with or without the original box. The acetate text pages are prone to scuffing and light surface scratches. A separate book version of Apocalypse was published in 1988 in 250 hardbound and 250 paperbound copies, and a Burroughs bibliography records a 38 x 38 inch silkscreen broadside of the text, without Haring's artwork, in 90 copies; neither is the print portfolio.

Public collections hold the work. The Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas has a set loaned by the Estate of William S. Burroughs, and the Minneapolis Institute of Art owns Apocalypse 10, the final plate.

After the Apocalypse

The two collaborated again in 1989 on The Valley, sixteen etchings with a chapter from Burroughs's novel The Western Lands. In 1989 Haring also established the Keith Haring Foundation to fund AIDS organizations and children's programs. He died of AIDS-related complications on February 16, 1990, at 31.

In 1990 Burroughs released the spoken-word album Dead City Radio, dedicated to Haring. Burroughs died in Lawrence on August 2, 1997.

The numbers

Medium

Ten screenprints in colors on Museum Board (one catalogue: screenprint and offset lithograph), with Burroughs's text printed on acetate

Dimensions

Each sheet 38 x 38 in (about 96.5 x 96.5 cm)

Edition

90 sets, 20 artist's proofs, 5 hors commerce sets

Catalogue raisonne

Littmann pp. 98-109 (one catalogue) or pp. 98-115 (another)

Public collections

Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas (set on loan from the Burroughs estate); Minneapolis Institute of Art (plate 10)

Timeline

1. May 4, 1958

   Keith Haring is born in Reading, Pennsylvania.

2. 1977

   Burroughs and Brion Gysin publish The Third Mind, which Haring later studies closely.

3. Nov 30, 1978

   The Nova Convention celebrating Burroughs opens in New York; Haring, a student, attends.

4. 1980

   Burroughs lectures in France on The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

5. 1983

   Haring and Burroughs meet, according to one gallery account (an auction catalogue says 1978).

6. 1987

   Haring is diagnosed with HIV and is photographed with Burroughs in Lawrence, Kansas.

7. 1988

   Apocalypse is published: ten screenprints in an edition of 90, with Burroughs's text.

8. 1988

   Haring is diagnosed with AIDS in the autumn.

9. 1989

   The pair's second collaboration, The Valley, follows; Haring establishes his foundation.

10. Feb 16, 1990

    Haring dies of AIDS-related complications at 31.

11. 1990

    Burroughs releases Dead City Radio, dedicated to Haring.

12. Aug 2, 1997

    Burroughs dies.

13. Sep 15, 2010

    Set 77/90 sells in London for £21,250.

14. Apr 2022

    Set 4/90 sells in New York for $151,200.

15. Mar 27, 2024

    Set 67/90 sells online in London for £88,200 with fees.

The world in 1988

• Apr 11, 1988

  The Last Emperor wins all nine of its Academy Award nominations.

• Jun 1, 1988

  The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union takes effect.

• Jun 22, 1988

  Who Framed Roger Rabbit is released.

• Sep 29, 1988

  NASA resumes Space Shuttle flights with Discovery, the first since the Challenger disaster.

• Nov 2, 1988

  The Morris worm, the first computer worm spread over the Internet, is launched from MIT.

• Nov 8, 1988

  George H. W. Bush is elected president.

• Dec 1, 1988

  The first World AIDS Day is observed.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Apocalypse (complete set of 10) is number 38 of 100 in the art entries of the FLOAT 100. 88 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (46 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Burroughs's half of the portfolio is printed on clear acetate, laid alongside Haring's images.
• Timothy Leary called the Haring-Burroughs collaboration "like Dante and Titian getting together."
• Haring first encountered Burroughs's world as a student at the 1978 Nova Convention, where Frank Zappa filled in at the last minute for Keith Richards.
• The horned 'devil sperm' that recurs through the prints is Haring's warning about sex in the AIDS era.
• Burroughs dedicated his 1990 album Dead City Radio to Haring.
• A set that sold for £21,250 in 2010 was followed by one at $151,200 in 2022.