Untitled Painting (1989) was one of the last artworks Keith Haring created before passing away due to AIDS-related complications. The piece featured a rhythmic purple pattern in the top left corner of the canvas, but was purposefully left blank as a commentary on the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which took the lives of millions around the world, including many from the LGBTQ+ community.
A user on X (formerly Twitter) named @DonnelVillager recently enforced AI to imagine what the rest of the composition would have looked like. He prefaced the post by saying how sad the story behind Haring’s painting was and that, thanks to AI, “we can complete what he couldn’t finish!”
Lots of people angry about this, but I used AI to figure out how Keith would feel and it seems he is happy with the outcome. Good job! pic.twitter.com/Go3afgfMYs
— Aodán Hill (@aodanhill) December 31, 2023
Another member named @aodanhill went as far as to use AI to see how Haring himself would have reacted to the completed piece, if the technology were to pretend to be the artist. ChatGPT responded: “I’m thrilled to see my unfinished canvas transformed into a vibrant tapestry of movement and life — a testament to the collaborative spirit that fuels creativity and the endless possibilities of artistic expression.”
X, just like many social media threads, have become hotspots for bots, incendiary messages and click-bait, so it’s not entirely clear if Donnel’s message was of the latter. While the results look astonishingly close to what the American pop artist had done throughout his career, there are many who have criticized the efforts for erasing the conceptual framework for Haring’s artwork.
“This is disgusting, a desecration, an act of sacrilege,” commented user @AndyofSpades. “The fact you even thought this to be at all okay says that you need to go out and speak with people, real people. Not just your computer screen and all of us within it.”
The Haring dispute joins a long list of controversial ways in which AI has been used regarding the creative world, including a recent leak that showed the thousands of artists Midjourney employs to teach its learning models.
