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About Keith Haring, Pop Graffiti Artist
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Keith Haring, Art in Transit
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Keith Haring, Art and Commerce
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Conversation with Keith Haring
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Keith Haring, In The Moment
Table of contents
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About Keith Haring / By John Gruen
About Keith Haring, Pop Graffiti Artist Keith Haring is an iconic New York artist famous for his cartoon-style street culture paintings.
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Keith Haring at work in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam
eith Haring was born on May 4, 1958 in Reading, Pennsylvania, and was raised in nearby Kutztown, Pennsylvania. He developed a love for drawing at a very early age, learning basic cartooning skills from his father and from the popular culture around him, such as Dr. Seuss and Walt Disney. Upon graduation from high school in 1976, Haring enrolled in the Ivy School of Professional Art in Pittsburgh, a commercial arts school. He soon realized that he had little interest in becoming a commercial graphic artistand, after two semesters, dropped out. While in Pittsburgh, Haring continued to study and work on his own and in 1978 had a solo exhibition of his work at the Pittsburgh Arts and Crafts Center. Later that same year, Haring moved to New York City and enrolled in the School of Visual Arts (SVA). In New York, Haring found a thriving alternative art community that was developing outside the gallery and museum system, in the downtown streets, the subways and spaces in clubs and former dance halls. Here he became friends with fellow artists Kenny Scharf and Jean-Michel Basquiat, as well as the musicians, performance artists and graffiti writers that comprised the burgeoning art community. Haring was swept up in the energy and spirit of this scene and began to organize and participate in exhibitions and performances at Club 57 and other alternative venues. In addition to being impressed by the innovation and energy of his contemporaries, Haring was also inspired by the work of Jean Dubuffet, Pierre Alechinsky, William Burroughs, Brion Gysin and Robert Henri’s manifesto The Art Spirit, which asserted the fundamental independence of the artist. With these influences Haring was able to push his own youthful impulses toward a singular kind of graphic expression based on the primacy of the line.
Also drawn to the public and participatory nature of Christo’s work, in particular Running Fence, and by Andy Warhol’s unique fusion of art and life, Haring was determined to devote his career to creating a truly public art. As a student at SVA, Haring experimented with performance, video, installation and collage, while always maintaining a strong commitment to drawing. In 1980, Haring found a highly effective medium that allowed him to communicate with the wider audience he desired, when he noticed the unused advertising panels covered with matte black paper in a subway station. He began to create drawings in white chalk upon these blank paper panels throughout the subway system. Between 1980 and 1985, Haring produced hundreds of these public drawings in rapid rhythmic lines, sometimes creating as many as forty “subway drawings” in one day. This seamless flow of images became familiar to New York commuters, who often would stop to eng-age the artist when they encountered him at work. The subway became, as Haring said, a “laboratory” for working out his ideas and experimenting with his simple lines. Between 1980 and 1989, Haring achieved international recognition and participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions. His first solo exhibition in New York.was held at the Westbeth Painters Space in 1981. In 1982, he made his Soho gallery debut with an immensely popular and highly acclaimed one-man exhibition at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery. During this period, he also participated in renowned international survey exhibitions such as Documenta 7 in Kassel; the São Paulo Biennial; and the Whitney Biennial. Haring completed numerous public projects in the first half of the 80’s as well, ranging from an animation for the Spectacolor billboard in Times Square, designing sets and
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About Keith Haring backdrops for theaters and clubs, developing watch designs for Swatch and an advertising campaign for Absolut vodka; and creating murals worldwide. In April 1986, Haring opened the Pop Shop, a retail store in Soho selling T-shirts, toys, posters, buttons and magnets bearing his images. Haring considered the shop to be an extension of his work and painted the entire interior of the store in an abstract black on white mural, creating a striking and unique retail environment. The shop was intended to allow people greater access to his work, which was now readily available on products at a low cost. The shop received criticism from many in the art world, however Haring remained committed to his desire to make his artwork available to as wide an audience as possible, and received strong support for his project from friends, fans and mentors including Andy Warhol. Throughout his career, Haring devoted much of his time to public works, which often carried social messages. He produced more than 50 public artworks between 1982 and 1989, in dozens of cities around the world, many of which were created for charities, hospitals, children’s day care centers and orphanages. The now famous Crack is Wack mural of 1986 has become a landmark along New York’s FDR Drive. Other projects include; a mural created for the 100th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty in 1986,
on which Haring worked with 900 children; a mural on the exterior of Necker Children’s Hospital in Paris, France in 1987; and a mural painted on the western side of the Berlin Wall three years before its fall. Haring also held drawing workshops for children in schools and museums in New York, Amsterdam, London, Tokyo and Bordeaux, and produced imagery for many literacy programs and other public service campaigns. Haring was diagnosed with AIDS in 1988. In 1989, he established the Keith Haring Foundation, its mandate being to provide funding and imagery to AIDS organizations and children’s programs, and to expand the audience for Haring’s work through exhibitions, publications and the licensing of his images. Haring enlisted his imagery during the last years of his life to speak about his own illness and generate activism and awareness about AIDS. During a brief but intense career that spanned the 1980s, Haring’s work was featured in over 100 solo and group exhibitions. In 1986 alone, he was the subject of more than 40 newspaper and magazine articles. He was highly sought after to participate in collaborative projects ,and worked with artists and performers as diverse as Madonna, Grace Jones, Bill T.Jones, William Burroughs, Timothy Leary, Jenny Holzer, Yoko Ono and Andy Warhol. By expressing universal concepts of birth, death, love, sex and war, using a primacy of line and directness of message,
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Haring was able to attract a wide audience and assure the accessibility and staying power of his imagery, which has become a universally recognized visual language of the 20th century. Keith Haring died of AIDS related com-plications at the age of 31 on February 16,1990. A memorial service was held on May 4,1990 at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, with over 1,000 people in attendance. Since his death, Haring has been the subject of several international retrospectives. The work of Keith Haring can be seen today in the exhibitions and collections of major museums around the world.
“Whatever you do, the only secret is to believe in it and satisfy yourself. Don't do it for anyone else.�
Keith Haring. December 31, 1987: New York City. Dress for Grace Jones Performing During Her New Year's. Eve Concert at Roseland Ballroom.
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“My contribution to the world is my ability to draw. I will draw as much as I can for as many people as I can for as long as I can.” –Keith Haring
Keith Haring in his New York studio. The work behind him (with the pink triangle) hangs in the space today.
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Art in Transit / By Keith Haring
Keith Haring, Art in Transit Since the 1980’s, a new presence has been seen and felt in New York City’s street and subways.
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Keith Haring working in the subway. Photographer, Chantal Regnault 1983
have been drawing since I was four years old. I learned to draw from my father, who would entertain me by inventing cartoon animals. Although he never pursued an artistic career, he encouraged me to continue drawing throughout my school years. Drawing became a way of commanding respect and communicatiing with people. When I was eighteen, my work, which had been primarily cartoon-oriented, became increasingly abstract and concerned with spontaneous action. I became interested in Eastern Calligraphy and the art of the Gesture. When I moved to New York City at the age of twenty, I started to experiment with drawing on paper that was so large that I had to stand inside the drawing. Although my work was still “Abstract” at this time, I became aware of the vast differences in people’s responses to the work. Different people saw different things in the drawings. I remember most cle-arly an afternoon of drawing ina studio that large doors that opened onto Twenty-second Street. All kinds of people would stop and look at the huge drawing and many were eager to comment on their feelings toward it. This was the first time I realized how many people could enjoy art if they were given the chance. These were not the people I saw in the museums or in the galleries but a cross section of humanity that cut across all boundaries. This group of different people living and working together in harmony has always been my prime attraction to New York. I arrived in New York at a time when the most beautiful paintings being shown in the city were on wheels–on trains–paintings that traveled to you instead of vice versa. I was immediately attracted to the subway graffiti on several levels: the obvious mastery of drawing and color, the scale, the pop imagery, the commitment to drawing worthy of risk and the direct relationship between artist and audience. I had no intention, however, of jumping on the bandwagon and imitating their style.
or two years, I was an observer. During that time, my art was going through several changes. I began making videotapes and doing performances. I was introduced to the work of William Burroughs and began experimenting with words and meaning in a similar style. I studied semiotics, the science of signs and symbols. In 1980, I returned to drawing with a new commitment to purpose and reality. If I was going to draw, there had to be a reason. That reason, I decided, was for people. The only way art lives is through the experience of the observer. The reality of art begins in the eyes of the beholder and gains power through imagination, invention, and confrontation. Doing things in public was not a new idea. The climate of art in New York at that time was certainly moving in that direction. It seemed obvious to me when I saw the first empty subway panel that this was the perfect situation. The advertisements that fill every subway panel that this was the perfect situation. The advertisements that fill every subway platform are changed periodically. When there aren’t enough new ads, a black paper panel is substituted. I remember noticing a panel in the Times Square station and immediately going aboveground and buying chalk. After the first drawing, things just fell into place. I began drawing in the subways as a hobby on my way to work. I had to ride the subways often and would do a drawing while waiting for a train. In a few weeks, I started to get responses from people who say me doing it. After a while, my subway drawings became more of a responsibility than a hobby. So many people wished me luck and told me to “keep it up” that it became difficult to stop. From the beginning, one of the main incentives was this contact with people I It became a rewarding experience to draw and to see the drawings being appreciated. The number of
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Art in Transit
people passing one of these drawings in a week was phenomal. Even if the drawing only remained up for only one day, enough people saw it to make it easily worth my effort. The panel remains from a few days to a few weeks before a new advertisement is posted on tip of it. This constant replenishment forces me to keep inventing new images and ideas. The images are part of the collective consciousness of modern man. Sometimes they stem from world events, sometimes from ideas about technology or people changing roles in relation to God and evolution. All of the drawings use images that universally “readable”. They are are often inspired by popular culture. The drawings are designed to provoke people to think and use their own imagination. They don’t have exact definitions but challenge the viewer to assert his or her own ideas and interpretation. Sometimes, people find this uncomfortable, especially because the drawings are ina space usually reserved for advertisements which tell you exactly what to think. Sometimes the advertisements on the side of the empty panels provide inspiration for the drawings and often create ironic associations. When there are grafitti “tags” (signatures) on the black panel before I arrive, I usually draw around and in between the signatures. I would never draw over other people’s tags. This mutual respect among graffiti writers, however, does not extend to other people. Sometimes other people sign my drawings after I’ve left. Sometimes they erase them, cross them out, or even steal them. These are the only things that inhibit my work in the subway. The drawings are by necessity quick and simple. This is not only for easy readability but also to avoid getting arrested. Technically they are still graffiti. Because they are only chalk and the black ads are only temporary, it is hard to call them vandalism; however, different policeman respond in different ways. I have
been caught many times. Some cops have given me a $10.00 ticket, some have handcuffed me and taken me in. By the time they let me go, most of them tell me they like the drawing, but they’re just doing their job. More than once, I’ve been taken to a station handcuffed by a cop who realized, much to his dismay, that the other cops in the precinct are my fans and were anxious to meet me and shake my hand. I have been drawing in the subway for three years now, and although my career aboveground has skyrocketed, the subway is still my favorite place to draw. There is something very “real” about the subway system and the people who travel in it; perhaps there is not another place in the world where people of such diverse appearance, background, and life–style have intermingled for a common purpose. In this underground environment, one can often feel a sense of oppression and struggle in the vast assortment of faces. It is in this context that an expression of hope and beauty carries the greatest rewards.
My contribution to the world is my ability to draw. I will draw as much as I can for as many people as I can for as long as I can.
13 Chalk Drawing in the New York Subway. Keith Haring, Untitled, 1984, chalk on paper, 88 1 /2 x 46 inches.
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Conversation with Keith Haring /By John Gruen
Conversation with Keith Haring This essay is published in The Keith Haring Show (Milan, Italy: Skira), 2005.
About Inspiration from other Artists At the arts and crafts center in Pittsburgh, I started to do printmaking… Around this time, 1977, I had a real obsession with paper. As I started to expand and do bigger things, I had this real aversion to canvas. I didn’t want to do things on canvas. I wanted to work on paper, partly because paper was inexpensive, but partly because it was interesting. Also, I felt this strong need to get to know what other artists had done. I spent a lot of time at the library and came across Dubuffet. I was startled at how similar Dubuffet’s images were to mine, because I was making these little abstract shapes that were interconnected. So I looked into the rest of his work. And I became very interested in Stuart Davis, because one of his teachers was Robert Henri, and also because he was interrelating his abstract shapes. And I began relating to Jackson Pollock–especially the early abstract stuff–and to Paul Klee and Alfonso Ossorio and Mark Tobey–and suddenly seeing the whole Eastern concept of art, which really affected me. Of course, at the time, I didn’t in any way consider myself an equal to those artists. But each of those painters had something I was involved with, so I investigated them, trying to find out who they were, so I could figure out who I was and where I was coming from.
Photography has become such an important part of my work since so much of it is temporary. After all, the phenomena of photography and video that have made the international phenomenon of Keith Haring possible. - Keith Haring
Then, even more importantly, it was the time of the Carnegie International, which was this huge show given in Pittsburgh, at the Museum of Art at the Carnegie Institute. That year, in 1977, the show was an enormous retrospective by Pierre Alechinsky. I had never heard of him before, and all of a sudden there were something like two hundred paintings and drawings tracing his career. And there were videotapes of him working. And I didn’t know who that was!
I couldn’t believe that work! It was so close to what I was doing! Much closer than Dubuffet. It was the closest thing I had ever seen to what I was doing with these self-generative little shapes. Well, suddenly I had a rush of confidence. Here was this guy, doing what I was doing, but on a huge scale, and done in the kind of calligraphy I was working with, and there were frames that went back to cartooning–to the whole sequence of cartoons, but done in a totally free and expressive way, which was totally about chance, totally about intuition, totally about spontaneity–and letting the drips in and showing the brush–but big! And this huge obsession with ink and a brush! And an obsession with paper! And all those things were totally, but totally in the direction I was heading. I went to that exhibition I don’t know how many times. I bought the catalogue, I read Alechinsky’s writings. I watched the videos of him painting these enormous canvases on the floor! For him, it was like an Eastern thing, with the importance of gravity having great meaning. And he had rigged up these boards in his studio so he could lie on top of them in order to get to the middle of these big paintings on the floor. Well, Alechinsky totally blew me away. From that point on, it changed everything for me. Right away my work started getting bigger and bigger. I found a place to get paper where they had cardboard tubes, leftover pieces from Styrofoam cuttings, and rolls of paper from printing plants. I’d haul the paper to the arts and crafts center and, after work or during lunch breaks, I’d be doing these paintings inspired by Alechinsky. I began working on the floor. The drips from the paint would be incorporated into what I was doing. My things were different from Alechinsky. They didn’t have the fluidity of his abstract line. Mine had a boxy edge to the line–a sort of constrained look,
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Conversation with Keith Haring
but still liberated.The main thing that I was acquiring was confidence. I felt I was doing something that was worthwhile. On Christo During my last year in Pittsburgh there was one other really important thing that occurred, and that was my hearing a lecture given by the artist, Christo. After the lecture, he showed a film made about one of his works called Running Fence. It affected me profoundly. It fulfilled all the philosophical and theoretical ideas I had about public art and about the intervention of an artist with the public and with real events. I mean, to see these people–these farmers–who resisted Christo’s project getting up early in the morning to see the sunrise reflected in the Running Fence–and standing there and saying it was the most beautiful thing they had ever seen! I mean, totally transforming these people, who were farmers! And seeing them affected and challenged by and inspired by a work of art! No matter how contemporary it was, and no matter how alien it was to everything they knew –somehow, that forced intervention by an artist made them see things in a whole other way. Well, it impressed me incredibly. I had no idea how I could do anything similar–how I could involve other people–how I could engage the public like that. I had no idea how to do that. On Video Art The first tapes I made were all self-referential. The first time you see and hear yourself on video–and look at yourself from outside of yourself–is an incredible psychological lesson. Since then, I’ve maintained that schools should teach video not as a video class, but as a psychology or philosophy class. Video really gives you a whole other concept of self and ego, and an
objective way of looking at and being comfortable with yourself in a way that might not have existed before. Especially important is the way the camera is set up, so that it’s live and you react to what you’re seeing yourself do at the same time that you’re doing it. I mean, you can see the back of your head while you’re doing something else–you can see yourself from the side. So I looked at video, and started thinking about the meaning of this concept of self and ego. Keith on Painting as a Kind of Dance At SVA, I was producing lots of things in quantity. Like, I found a place where someone had put out on the street these huge rolls of paper, which were about nine feet tall and they turned out to be photographic backdrop paper. I dragged those rolls back to the school, laid them down on the floor in the sculpture studio, and proceeded to do these ink paintings similar to Alechinsky’s, but bigger. This time, though, I became very intrigued with the act of doing this. It was the idea of making the movements I was doing into a kind of choreography–a kind of dance. I was thinking that the very act of painting placed you in an exhilarated state–it was a sacred moment. On Graffiti Art and First Meeting with Basquiat Almost immediately upon my arrival in New York in 1978, I had begun to be interested, intrigued, and fascinated by the graffiti I was seeing in the streets and in the subways. Often I’d take the trains to the museums and galleries, and I was starting to see not only the big graffiti on the outside of the subway trains, but incredible calligraphy on the inside of the cars. The calligraphic stuff reminded me of what I learned about Chinese
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and Japanese calligraphy. There was also this streamof-consciousness thing–this mind-to-hand flow that I saw in Dubuffet, Mark Tobey, and Alechinsky. The forms I was seeing were very similar to the kinds of drawings I was doing, even though I wasn’t making the voluminous letters and the aggressively fluid lines, which were done directly on the surfaces, and without a preconceived plan. They were really, really strong. Well, I felt immediately comfortable with this art. I was aware of it wherever I was. So the time spent en route to a gallery or to a performance or to a concert was just as interesting and educational as that which I was going t see. Sometimes I wouldn’t even get on the first train. I’d sit and wait to see what was on the next train. Graffiti were the most beautiful things I ever saw. This being 1978-79, the war on graffiti hadn’t really begun yet. So the art was allowed to blossom into something amazing, and the movement was really at its peak. These kids, who were obviously very young and from the streets, had this incredible mastery of drawing which totally blew me away. I mean, just the technique of drawing with spray paint is amazing, because it’s incredibly difficult to do. And the fluidity of line, and the way they handled scale–doing this work on these huge, huge trains. And always the hardedged black line that tied the drawings together! It was the line I had been obsessed with since childhood! As I was coming to the end of my time at the School of Visual Arts, there started appearing on the streets this graffiti which said SAMO. It appeared for almost a year, and I had no idea who this person was, but I began to religiously follow the work, because it was appearing where I was living, walking, and going to school. It was the first time I saw what I would call a literary graffiti, one that wasn’t done just for the sake
of writing a name or for making a formal mark. These were little poems, little statements–they were non sequiturs–and they were conceptual statements– and they were on the street. For me, it was condensed poetry which would stop you in your tracks and make you think. Well, SAMO, which some said stood for “same old shit” turned out to be Jean-Michel Basquiat. I had heard that Jean Michel was attending an alternative highschool program, that he was part of the Mudd Club scene and that he lived wherever he could crash. Actually, I still hadn’t met Jean. Michel–I had only heard about him.
When it is working, you completely go into another place, you're tapping into things that are totally universal, completely beyond your ego and your own self. That's what it's all about.
KEITH HARING Ignorance = Fear, 1989 On behalf of the New York based AIDS activist group AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), Keith Haring designed and executed this poster in 1989 after he himself had been diagnosed the previous year. The poster reveals three figures communicating the "see nothing, hear nothing, say nothing" to imply the struggles faced by those living with AIDS and the challenges posed by individuals or groups that fail to properly acknowledge and respect the epidemic.
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Art and Commerce / By Jade Dellinger
Keith Haring, Art and Commerce Haring art sells for around $500,000 to $1 million per painting.
The Pop Shop (1986-2005) Nothing truly extraordinary can last forever. The sad reality is that everything good must someday come to an end. Some losses pass quickly, others are not soon forgotten. After nearly twenty years in business, Keith Haring’s Pop Shop closed last September. There was very little fanfare, yet many mourn the loss. Not since learning that the artist was suffering from AIDS, or hearing word of his untimely death at thirty-one years of age, have such emotions been stirred. Haring had always been forthright, open and honest when he learned of his illness. He acknowledged it to the public-at-large in a Rolling Stone interview, yet there wasn’t much to soften the blow on that inevitable day in 1990 when he died. For many, The Pop Shop on Lafayette Street in lower Manhattan’s SOHO district provided a sense of peace after Haring’s death. Established by the artist in 1986, The Pop Shop was open to everyone in a way that was impossible or impractical for a commercial gallery. While Haring’s artistic output was tragically cut short, his art (and something of his aura) could always be accessible through a visit to his Pop Shop. Admirers of Haring’s art made the pilgrimage, and never left empty-handed. Posters could be had for a dollar and “Radiant Baby” buttons for fifty cents. But, like the painted ghost on The Pop Shop’s mirror, one could feel the artist’s presence there long after his death. Many of Keith Haring’s finest attributes in life seem to have been “embodied” in the store. All of The Pop Shop’s profits were distributed to children’s charities, educational organizations and AIDS-related causes in accordance with the mandate of the Keith Haring Foundation, established by the artist prior to his death. When The Pop Shop closed, there was such an enormous outcry from Haring fans and former patrons that the Foundation felt the need to allow postings at
haring.com, resulting in an online forum. The response was overwhelming with many elegiac laments, personal recollections, and even a few complaints. Most, however, wrote simply to express a profound sense of loss. A feeling that what was once so accessible – and perhaps taken for granted—was now no longer available. Gone forever…like Keith. Words like “Capitalist” and others too rude to mention: As Haring wrote in his journal, “Very few people understand why someone would want to open a shop and not make money.” In describing that rainy Saturday afternoon ribbon-cutting ceremony, Michael Gross of The New York Times missed the point by writing: “Mr. Haring used to offer his art free on subway walls. Now he sells it for five-figure sums. Mr. Haring also used to give away his pins, jigsaw puzzles and comic books, which are now for sale at the shop.” According to the Times, “That may be why someone spray-painted its threshold with words like ‘Capitalist’ and others too rude to mention.” Yet, making money was never Haring’s intent. In his journals, Haring stated that the reason he felt at liberty to create paintings for the gallery, make a Grace Jones video for MTV, create vodka ads, and open his Pop Shop without fear of compromise or contradiction was that all these opportunities had arisen naturally. Haring believed it was simply a question of being honest with yourself and your times. It was less about “purity” and much more an issue of integrity. He wrote in his journal, “There isn’t much difference between the people I have to deal with in the art market or in the commercial world.”The artist continued, “Once the artwork becomes a ‘product’ or a ‘commodity’ the compromising position is basically the same.” As the artist reveals “Of course, the Pop Shop was an easy target,
"The Pop Shop makes my work accessible. It’s about participation on a big level." -Keith Haring
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Art and Commerce
and it was attacked from all sides. People could now say, ‘What do you mean Haring isn’t commercial? He’s opened a store!’ But I didn’t care…it’s an art experiment that works.” With the opening of The Pop Shop, Haring had reason to cease drawing in the subways. “These drawings had run their course, because they had achieved what I wanted them to achieve and that was getting the work out to the public at large.” The artist continued, “I also stopped because the subway drawings were disappearing. Word had gotten out that my prices were rising more and more and people just cut the drawings out of their panels and sold them.” In fact, according to one account, a “street artist,” disgruntled with Haring’s rapid rise to fame and apparent fortune, purchased large sheets of archival paper from New York Central Art Supply to mimic the material glued over old advertisements by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). This artist acquaintance now admits to strategically peppering the subway billboards along Haring’s regular path with these deceptive black paper panels cut to fit and installed with double-sided tape (versus the wheat-paste favored by the New York City Transit). Thus, Haring’s fresh chalk drawings could be easily removed and collected just minutes after the unsuspecting artist had departed the scene.
Contrary to The New York Times report, except when “liberated” by an act of vandalism (equal to or greater than the artist’s own), Haring’s subway drawings were never “free.” They were never signed, never given monetary value by the artist, nor intended for the art market. Haring thought of these drawings as time-based ephemera. Performance relics? Perhaps, while they lasted. But, most importantly, the subway drawings were a grassroots campaign to reach people–as many and as diverse a group as possible. Communication, Not Commerce: According to Haring: “I wanted to continue the same sort of communication as with the subway drawings. I wanted to attract the same wide range of people, and I wanted it (The Pop Shop) to be a place where, yes, not only collectors could come, but also kids from the Bronx.”21 The Pop Shop’s philosophy was simple. Haring continued: “The main point was that we didn’t want to produce things that would cheapen the art…This was still an art statement. I mean, we could have put my designs on ‘anything’…We sold the inflatable baby and the toy radio and, mostly, a wide variety of t-shirts, because they’re like a wearable print–they’re art objects.” Two years after Haring opened his Pop Shop, Marcia Tucker wrote in her Preface to the New Museum
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of Contemporary Art’s catalogue, Impresario: Malcolm McLaren and the British New Wave: “According to certain postmodernist theories, the traditional modernist avant-garde no longer exists, having exhausted itself or, in its turn, having been co-opted by the forms of popular culture. Some have even called this process a democratization of culture whereby popular forms replace those of the bourgeois avant-garde. Or perhaps it is more a matter of displacement–that slippery moment when art becomes commerce, shifting back again into the cultural arena as another kind of commodity. The catch is, even today, in 1988, few among us are willing to acknowledge that certain mass cultural forms and practices may comprise the most significant ‘culture’ of our time, precisely because of their ‘popular’ character. A Combination of Inc. and Ink: In describing a satellite venture in Japan, Haring wrote: “Pop Shop will go up in a temporary building on a temporary location for a temporary time…The whole concept is perfectly in keeping with my aesthetic.” Like his short-lived Pop Shop in Tokyo and the ephemeral subway drawings, Haring must have realized his New York store would last only so long. Now that The Pop Shop is gone, “Keith Haring: Art & Commerce” pays tribute. Like the artist who created it, The Pop Shop was always infinitely more about art than commerce. Yet,
Keith Haring understood his role in helping to merge the two. In his October 7, 1987, journal entry, the artist wrote: “I just boarded the plane to Nice. It’s funny to me how many different ways my name gets spelled on boarding passes, but this is the best. I’ve seen Harding, Harving, etc., but this one says Harinck. It look sounds like a combination of Inc. and ink; I like that.”
“If I only made paintings in a gallery I would probably be frustrated.“
"In 1979, I started working my Photography Thesis on NYC Downtown Nightlife and because of that l met Keith Haring and then later at SVA. I got to photograph him at an early stage in his life before he became famous. One night while he was working at Danceteria as an usher, l suggested l photograph a series of his work from start to finish. He agreed and I came over to his shabby downtown storefront studio and we smoked a joint and off he went. He was so fast l barely shot a roll." -Keith Haring
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