Last act, the End...

March 1986

The Stedelijk Museum: a solo exhibition and a mural

He held a solo museum exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and in March 1986 painted a mural on the façade of the museum’s storage building.

April 1986

Opens the Pop Shop in SoHo

In April 1986 the Pop Shop opened in SoHo, selling shirts, posters and other items showcasing his work, to make his art accessible at reasonable prices and to break down the barrier between his art and mass culture. To the charge that he was commodifying his art he answered that he could earn more by simply painting a few things and raising the price.

1987

Diagnosed with HIV

He was diagnosed with HIV in 1987. An openly gay artist and advocate of safe sex, he used his imagery in the last years of his life to speak about his illness and to generate activism and awareness about AIDS.

autumn 1988

Diagnosed with AIDS

In the autumn of 1988 he was diagnosed with AIDS. From then on he campaigned actively against the silence around the illness; the danger of the disease became a constant theme of his work, the virus typically appearing in his graphics as a sperm cell with devil’s horns.

16 February 1990

Dies of AIDS-related complications in his apartment

On 16 February 1990 he died of AIDS-related complications at his LaGuardia Place apartment in Greenwich Village. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered in a field near Bowers, Pennsylvania, just south of his hometown of Kutztown.

16. Februar 1990

Died