It is hard to write about Keith Haring’s work overall: it is overwhelming. Especially this one. The viewer is overrun with colors and details. The eye can only rest when it gets to the lower right corner of the painting that seems to reveal the monotonous blue of the background. The effect of revelation is achieved through the thick black contour separating the bright yellow and orange details that fill the larger part of the work. At the same time, the contour is drawn over the paint that seems to have drained earlier over the blue part.

These intentional drains seem to me to be the most important part of the painting. They are the most important part, the one that makes the statement. Brazil is supposed to be overwhelming for a visitor or a newcomer: bright colors of nature enhanced by local culture and exhausting sun, crumped feel of the crowds, especially during festivals – all of this does not leave the space for either eye, mind, or body to rest and have some privacy. Brazil devours the space. Indeed, the statement that the drained paint makes is that you cannot restrict the manifestations of Brazilian life: there is still “empty” (blue) space, but the intrusion already happened. Now, it is only a matter of time until all of the crumped details, positioned so carefully as to loom over this corner, would collapse, overburdened with their own weight, and capture it.