The non conformist way of Haring's walk

Copyright Charles Dolfi- Michels

After passing through the New York School of Visual Arts American visual artist Keith Haring became a prominent subculture figure, leaving his spray painted mark on subway walls. 

Born in Reading and raised in Kutztown, Keith Haring(1958-1990)  grew a passion for drawing at an early age, learning basic cartooning skills from his creative father. While attending the Ivy School of Professional Art in Pittsburgh, he realized he had no interest in becoming a commercial graphic artist. 

In 1978 Keith Haring moved to bustling New York, where he developed his own style of abstracted figures. While attending the SVA he experimented with performance, video, installation, collage, painted plastic, metal and found objects and exhibited in Club 57. 

In 1980 Haring decided to draw cartoon-like pictures on the large amounts of unused black subway billboards. These recognizable white chalk Subway Drawings allowed direct communication with the public, whose attention he very much enjoyed while performing. 

His black outlined pictures of vital human and animal figures expressed powerful social messages of life, birth, drugs, AIDS, death, sex, war and unity. Vividly colored stereotype imagery of dices, dollar bills, barking dogs, wormlike babies, flying saucers, Mickey Mouse were successfully used in his 1980’s graffiti creations which soon caught art handlers' attention. 

Following his neon drawing on Times Square(1982) and a popular one-man exhibition at Tony Shafrazi’s gallery Haring’s intense worldwide career took form with shows at Documenta 7, the Paris, Whitney and São Paulo Biennial, ... 

An urban artist at heart, he continued to paint public murals: in Melbourne(1984), New York(Crack is Wack), Amsterdam, Paris, Phoenix, on the western side of the Berlin wall(1986).

Although the elite paid towering prizes for his works, Haring still believed art should be for every one. His hand painted Soho Pop Shop, the ultimate example of the artist as a brand image, sold affordable merchandising such as T-shirts, caps, toys, magnets, buttons and posters.

Embracing advertising as a medium, Haring designed for Swatch, Château Mouton Rotschild and Absolut Vodka. He furthermore painted in Grace Jones' I’m not perfect video clip, created a jacket for Madonna, theatre sets, posters, logos, held art workshops for children and generously painted to benefit health centers.

Diagnosed with AIDS in 1988, the artist established the Keith Haring Foundation which provides education to children in addition to the prevention of AIDS. This virtuoso pioneer of contemporary mass culture died at the age of thirty one. 

www.haring.com
www.haring.com/kh_foundation