First published on Sun 6 Jun 2021 08.46 EDT
It all began one February night in 1989. Cesar de Melero was DJing in the Ars Studio club in Barcelona when someone told him that the artist Keith Haring was outside but the doorman wouldn’t let him in.
“The place was packed, so I put on a record and pushed through the crowd,” De Melero told the Guardian. “And there he was with his saintly, innocent face and I told the doorman to let him in and I said to the boss: ‘Champagne for Keith Haring.’”
And so began a brief but intense friendship during which Haring painted a mural inside De Melero’s DJ cabin. The club closed in 1992, since when it has been a billiard hall. The Haring mural remains, unspoilt and half-forgotten, just where he painted it.