“The public has a right to art. The public is being ignored by most contemporary artists. […] Art is for everybody.”
― Keith Haring, Keith Haring Journals.
From New York’s East Village through the city’s subway stations and eventually across the world, Keith Haring wanted to make people smile. Today, his art with its bold lines and bright colors, his glowing babies and barking dogs continues to make people happy. Recently, Museum Folkwang in Essen, opened its doors to one of the most vibrant exhibitions of the year presenting highlights from almost 200 works, including large-format paintings, drawings, posters, photographs, and video installations.
Haring’s art are visual narratives – like comic books – and people loved reading and viewing his stories in the 1980s, 90s until today: stick-figure aliens invading earth, chalk drawings in the subway, anti-hate campaign posters, and murals covering the Manhattan of the late 80s. In his SoHo gallery, Pop Shop, Haring sold art that anyone could afford and connect to and the commercialization spurred his fame. His work was influenced by fellow friends and artists, such as Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Frank Stella, and Roy Lichtenstein who he repeatedly collaborated with throughout his career.
“I am interested in making art to be experienced and explored by as many individuals as possible with as many different individual ideas about the given piece with no final meaning attached. The viewer creates the reality, the meaning, the conception of the piece.”
― Keith Haring, Keith Haring Journals.
Gradually, Haring’s art found its way from low art to high art, and into pop culture. Today, his creations are inescapable: from paintings in high-class galleries to coffee mugs and sneakers featuring the legendary red dog. Collaborations with Madonna or Vivienne Westwood declared him a superstar of the New York art scene of the 1980s, and at a time that revolved around capitalism, underground club culture, video games, and space travel, Haring reacted to pressing matters such as homophobia, AIDS, and environmental devastation. His art advocates safe sex and highlights universal themes such as love and war, and his distinctive, apparently impulsive, and hasty style translates into a common language, comprehensible by all of us. Keith Haring died in 1990 of AIDS-related complications at just 31 years of age.
“Art should be something that liberates your soul, provokes the imagination and encourages people to go further.”
― Keith Haring
The exhibition pays an outstanding tribute to Haring’s extensive oeuvre ranging from drawings, paintings, and audio-visual installations which bring us right back into the New York of the 1980s – ultimately, provoking our imagination and encouraging people to engage with complex subjects in a brave and flamboyant manner.
Keith Haring | Museum Folkwang, Essen | 21 August – 29 November 2020
No responses yet