Keith Haring
Collaborated Project:
When Keith Haring (b. 1958, Reading,
Pennsylvania, U.S.; d. 1990, New York, New York, U.S.) moved from Pittsburgh to
New York in 1978 to study at the School of Visual Arts, he joined an emergent community
dedicated to exploring the city’s public and alternative spaces as arenas for
artistic expression. In 1980, Haring began making white chalk drawings on the
blank paper panels he found throughout the subway system. Developing a
high-impact visual language based on strong, simple lines and immediately
recognizable symbols, Haring reflected on universal themes: love and sex, work
and money, birth and death. His faceless figures, "radiant babies"
and "barking dogs" became the ubiquitous icons of an era, endlessly
adaptable to different uses and formats. Haring, an integral part of the East
Village art scene, exhibited in and organized shows at Downtown venues such as
the Mudd Club and Club 57. He was very supportive of other artists and
collaborated extensively with the teenage graffiti artist LA II. They showed
together in a
legendary exhibition at the Fun Gallery in 1983. Between 1980 and 1989, Haring
participated in numerous exhibitions, including surveys such as documenta and
the Whitney Biennial. He also produced many “official” public projects, often
commissioned by charities and communicating messages of social concern, such as
his famous Crack Is Wack mural
painted on a handball court in East Harlem in 1986. Among his most high profile
outings was an animation for the Spectracolor billboard in Times Square and
watch designs for Swatch. He also collaborated with artists ranging from
William S. Burroughs to Madonna and opened the Pop Shop in 1986 to sell
products he had designed; he later opened a store in Tokyo as well. Haring was
diagnosed with AIDS in 1988 and established a foundation the next year to
benefit related organizations. He died in 1990, at the age of 31.