Name/Title
(1989) Keith Haring, Ignorance = Fear / Silence = Death — Fight AIDS, ACT UP Poster, United StatesDescription
Keith Haring, Ignorance = Fear / Silence = Death — Fight AIDS, ACT UP, 1989
Political advocacy poster
Artist: Keith Haring
Publisher: ACT UP (AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power)
Country: United States
Offset lithograph poster, approx. 24 × 43 in. (60 × 109 cm)
This poster, created in 1989 by artist Keith Haring, features three stylized, radiant yellow figures set against a vivid orange background. Each figure covers different parts of its face, visually referencing the “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” motif. Pink X marks appear across the figures’ chests. The text “IGNORANCE = FEAR” appears at the top, while the bottom reads “SILENCE = DEATH △ FIGHT AIDS ACT UP,” incorporating the pink triangle associated with AIDS activism.
Haring, who was diagnosed with AIDS in 1988, produced this work in collaboration with ACT UP during a period of intensified activist mobilization. The equation-based slogans echo the visual and rhetorical strategies of the Silence = Death Project while translating them into Haring’s distinctive graphic language—bold outlines, simplified bodies, and saturated color fields. The poster merges street art aesthetics with direct political messaging, making it legible at a distance and suitable for protest display.
Unlike Haring’s commercial and gallery works, this piece was explicitly activist in orientation, designed to circulate publicly and support AIDS advocacy. By linking ignorance to fear and silence to death, the poster frames stigma and governmental inaction as active contributors to mortality. The directive “Fight AIDS” positions viewers not as passive observers but as participants in political struggle.
The work stands as one of the most recognizable intersections of late twentieth-century contemporary art and AIDS activism, documenting the role of artists in shaping the visual culture of ACT UP and the broader movement for HIV/AIDS awareness and justice.
Condition: Overall good to very good; restored creasing visible.Create Date
July 29, 2025Update Date
October 15, 2026