Keith Haring was an influential American Pop artist known for cartoon-like paintings, drawings, and murals typified by bold lines and direct messages. His short-lived career spanned just the 1980s but has a far-reaching legacy.
Read MoreThe Pennsylvania-born artist spent time studying and developing his art in Pittsburgh before moving to New York in 1978. Haring came to the city on a scholarship to the School of Visual Arts, where he experimented with collage, installation, performance, and video. At the same time, he maintained a firm commitment to the drawing practice he began in his childhood, inspired by popular cartoons of Walt Disney and Dr Seuss.
Quickly swept up in the vibrant, experimental East Village art scene, Haring mingled amongst uninhibited and innovative compatriots like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Kenny Scharf. Situated outside of the conventional gallery and museum system, the East Village scene emerged from backstreets, subways, clubs, and alternative art spaces such as P.S. 122 and Club 57, where Haring held exhibitions.
As a figure of American 20th-century contemporary art, Keith Haring is important because, alongside artists such as Basquiat and Scharf, he brought a new energy to the art of painting in the 1980s, reinvigorating the increasingly marginalised medium with elements of graffiti and popular culture.
Haring's influences also included older artists like Jean Dubuffet, Pierre Alechinsky, William S Burroughs, and Christo. In addition to valuing their individualism, Haring was greatly moved by the participatory nature of Christo's work, which showed that art could reach all people, not just the elite. These influences are present in the hundreds of subway drawings Haring made between 1980 and 1985, in which rhythmic chalk lines cover stations' matte black advertising boards. Making graffiti on city subways, Haring turned New York's subway systems into his artistic 'laboratory'.
From his subway works, Haring developed motifs such as the iconic Keith Haring hearts, barking dogs, UFOs, and glowing babies. His dancing figures and graphic lines became defining elements of his work.
As Haring's reputation grew, he caught the attention of the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in 1982. This partnership catapulted Haring's career into the spotlight of the art world, leading to numerous solo and group exhibitions. His distinctive style, rooted in his experiences as a street artist, quickly gained recognition beyond the confines of city subways.
By the mid-1980s, Haring had exhibited in international biennials, designed a billboard in New York's Times Square, and created an eye-catching advertising campaign for Absolut Vodka. Haring even created watch designs for Swatch.
Compelled to create art that reaches an audience beyond the art elite, Haring made many public works throughout his career. An iconic example, especially since its restoration, is the Crack is Wack (1986) mural in East Harlem, which Haring made in response to the crack cocaine epidemic sweeping the poorer neighbourhoods of New York. In the same year, he painted a section of the Berlin Wall at the invitation of the Checkpoint Charlie Museum.
Haring's art can be found in public spaces worldwide, but the artist's burgeoning career, which exploded in the 1980s, was sadly cut short. Keith Haring died from AIDS-related complications in 1990 at the young age of 31.
Keith Haring's art legacy continues to be felt inside and outside of the gallery, from internationally popular Keith Haring clothing—including Keith Haring hoodies, T-shirts, and caps—to the work of the Keith Haring Foundation, which preserves and circulates his work while supporting not-for-profit organisations that assist children and HIV/AIDs-related causes.
Keith Haring has held solo exhibitions at The Broad, Los Angeles; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Queens Museum, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Bordeaux; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Tate Liverpool, UK; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. Haring's work has been included in group exhibitions at The Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Art Museum of China, Beijing; P.S.1, New York; Tate Modern, London; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
The Keith Haring Foundation website can be found here.
Michael Irwin | Ocula | 2024
