Shepard Fairey who said “lets
make art not war.” Sheppard Fairey is a renounced activist and street artist
but when finding his love for art in High School he became in love and attached
to the work of Keith Haring and his his way of thinking, "make art not
war." Sheppard Fairey was introduced to street art in the 80s because of
Keith Haring's work. Street artists are a just as any normal artist but whose
canvas or work area is the street, wall, or on a sidewalk to promote there art
and make a name for them. Although many people may believe to look at street
art as vandalism, many seem to forget the message behind the street art pieces.
Street art gives people the urban perspective to show people the everyday
issues that we sometimes turn our back to. Keith Haring is an iconic artist who
is known by many artists as one of the founders of pop art just as Andy Warhol
who “many people believe is one of the pioneers of the street art world’’
(qtd. in Keith Haring X OBEY), explains Julia Green, executive director
at The Keith Haring Foundation. Keith Haring created a visual
imagery that included characters, slogans, and patterns like anyone was doing.
His pieces were like any other styles of art anyone has seen. The vibrant
colors to being able to recognized it works from a mile away and how that it
was Keith Haring. David Stark who is a foundation member of The Keith
Haring Foundation also in The Works on Paper 1989, went as far to say
"Keith Haring was a prodigy in the world of art his constant generosity of
spirit and fearless productivity under death's shadow." Keith Haring
loved art but he grew in a humble environment and always
thought of the people around and loved helping people out no matter who it was,
according to “Haring’s Kids Lesson Plans”, Haring was devoted to the children and
worked with children in schools and hospitals. He donated his work to
institutions, created books, and posters to educate children to advance their
causes.
Keith Haring is one of the originators for
using his art to show a message in a way many artists usually do not. He was a
visionary who visualized the world in a way many people did not in the sense
that everything had meaning behind it. He believed that “art could reach all
kinds of people, as opposed to the traditional view, which has art as this
elitist thing…” (Works on Paper 5). Keith Haring was born on May 4, 1958
in Reading, Pennsylvania during a time when modern art was not as popular and
becoming an artist was a long shot goal because to this day becoming a well
known artist is difficult. Not many artists have the privilege to say
that being an artist is helping them financially. Just as any kid growing up,
drawing was always something kids loved to do in class and at home but you
could observe that Keith Haring didn't just like drawing he loved it.
Keith haring started from cartoons from Walt Disney and Dr. Seuss. Keith Haring
attended Ivy School of Professional Art in Pittsburgh after graduating high
school. Haring was pushed by his parents and his guidance counselor because if
Keith Haring was serious about having a career in the art field it was best for
him to attend a school that was for specifically for an art career such as the
Ivy School of Professional Art in Pittsburgh, but then Keith dropped out after
two semesters. That year after dropping out Keith Haring moved to New York to
attend the School of Visual Arts. Haring's unique language and his
environmental and material poetry brought forth a network of interweaving signs
that could act on the nervous system of a city such as New York, according
to Germano Celant, author of Labyrinths of Life and Death.
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Once moving to New York he was influenced by the rebellious art movement
and unknown art works. Keith Haring was deeply in New York’s cultural
environment, and was well affected buy the city life and when arriving to “New
York in 1978 as a scholarship student at the School of Visual Arts. All at
once, he began to experience a multicultural urban community with its' own
expressive vocabulary" (Journey of The Radiant Baby 17). The
School of Visual Arts and in the vibrantly experimental East Village, gave
Keith Haring life and energy. In the 80s, New York was deeply influenced by
hip-hop attracting Keith Haring also attracted “to the street culture of
hip-hop music, break dancing, and graffiti art was partially born from his
rejection of the attitudes of the establishment power structure and his
determination to inhabit a larger world” (Works on Paper 4). Keith Haring
wanted to spread the street's voice and his art but in the beginning he had
trouble deciding how his work can be seen by the city. Inspired by the
graffiti on the walls of the downtown subways his belief of visual
communication, Keith Haring worked on the walls down in New York subways and
began filming the pieces. Keith Haring was working on and quickly created
a popular following for his lively figural and patterned imagery and his
cheekily outlaw activity. Haring shared few of the “tagging” tactics of
urban graffitists "being drawn instead to the possibilities of a
new public and vernacular kind of signage" (Encyclopedia Britannica).
When Keith Haring was discovering his style in art he was helped by his
teachers at the School of Visual Arts. Keith Haring discovered himself staring
from a group of drawing then realizing his drawing had meanings behind them
such as vocabulary leading him to think that drawing in the street because he
had something to say and spread. Keith Haring just as any artist, when finding
himself Keith “bought a roll of oak-tag paper and cut it up and put it all
over the floor and worked on this whole group of drawings. The first few were abstracts,
but then these images started coming” (The Keith Haring Foundation). One
day when Keith Haring was “riding the subway and saw this empty black panel
where an advertisement was supposed to go, he immediately realized that this
was the perfect place to draw. He went back above ground to a card shop and
bought a box of white chalk, went back down and did a drawing on it. It was
perfect–soft black paper; chalk drew on it really easily” (The Keith Haring
Foundation).
Just as any artist, Keith Haring cared much about the feedback of the viewers
because he wasn't doing his work for commission but for the people. Having any
type of feedback from the community motivated Keith Haring to keep doing what
he did best and which was going the streets a voice; “having this incredible
feedback from people, which is one of the main things that kept me going so
long, was the participation of the people that were watching me and the kinds
of comments and questions and observations that were coming from every range of
person you could imagine, from little kids to old ladies to art historians”
(The Keith Haring Foundation).
In
1982, Haring had his first New York one-man show at the Shafrazi
Gallery. At this time Keith “Haring worked on sets, record sleeves, book
covers” and because of his diverse projects many people at this time saw his
work with or without knowing him ("Camila Rockwood"). Not only did he
create paintings and sculptures for the show, he engulfed the entire gallery
with his bold color choices and frenetic designs. A critical success, he soon
became one of most popular artists of the time with exhibits in Japan, Brazil,
and many other countries. Haring collaborated with other artists and
performers, including Andy Warhol and William Burroughs. Wanting to make
his art more accessible, Haring opened Pop Shop in New York City in 1986. The
store sold posters, t-shirts, and other items baring his artwork and designs.
He was also interested many social causes, painting an anti-drug mural that
same year. In all, he did more than 50 public works and held numerous workshops
for children. What made Keith Haring unique was that he never changed even
how he was even with his accomplishments; Keith always tried to be humble
and care for his family and his community. With the successes Keith Haring
achieved he found it wrong to sell his work in exchange for money and because
of that Keith Haring donated most of his work to charities. Keith’s
reputation gradually began and kept growing as the years went by and as Keith
Haring kept work in different countries around the world but Keith Haring was
not in the art profession to popular, although he appreciated feedback from
people in the community and artists, but Keith was concerned in the people
around him.
In 1988, Keith Haring received saddening news that he had
been diagnosed with AIDS. Although it was a dark time for Keith Haring he
did not take a step back from art, but used this tragic event as a way to
spread awareness of AIDS. Keith Haring found this unfortunate event in his
life as an opportunity and kept moving in his life and started many of his
pieces to leave an image that spread the message of AIDS. “No matter how long
you work, it’s always going to end sometime. And there’s always going to be
things left undone. And it wouldn’t matter if you lived until you were
seventy-five. There would still be new ideas. There would still be things that
you wished you had accomplished. You could work for several lifetimes…. part of
the reason that I’m not having trouble facing the reality of death is that it’s
not a limitation, in a way. It could have happened any time, and it is going to
happen sometime. If you live your life according to that, death is irrelevant.
Everything I’m doing right now is exactly what I want to do” (The Keith Haring
Foundation). The next year, Keith created The Keith Haring
Foundation in response to his diagnoses and to support AIDS
organizations. Keith's foundation focused on children’s programs. The
Keith Haring Foundation continues to receive charitable
support of other AIDS-related organizations and people around the world.
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Keith Haring publicized his work "based on a contract with the
public that emerged with his first subway drawings and although it was not a
written contract and more of a personal thing, he cared about the
community" (Keith Haring: Journey of the Radiant Baby 14). Keith
Haring tweaked the way many people view their everyday lives in way that we
appreciate the small things and you can see the way he viewed the world by his
work. Keith Haring his art to give the “streets” a voice. The way he
painted his pieces showed how he expressed himself and cared about the
community just as some artists forget where they came from when becoming
known. Keith Haring was a visionary because although he may not have
changed the world or be considered a hero he did spread positivity in
his works and viewed the world as no one else; Keith Haring was "interested
in humanity and wanted to make a world a better place" (Keith Haring:
Journey of the Radiant Baby 20).
Work Cited
Celant, Germano, and Barry Blinderman. Keith Haring. Munich, Germany:
Prestel, 1992. Print.
"Haring Kids Lesson
Plans." Haring Kids | Welcome.
Keith Haring Foundation, 1996. Web. 25 Apr. 2013.
Haring, Keith, Donald
McKinney, Julia Gruen, David Stark, and Alexandra Anderson-Spivy. Keith Haring: Works on Paper 1989.
New York: Estate of Keith Haring, 1995. Print.
"Keith Haring." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia
Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013.
Web. 11 Apr. 2013.
Haring, Keith. “The Keith
Haring Foundation.” Haring.com. New York, 2013. Web. 9 May, 2013
Haring, Keith. Keith Haring: Journey of the Radiant Baby. Piermont, NH: Bunker
Hill Pub, 2006. Print.
Keith
Haring X OBEY Preview. Dir.
Zach Pina. Perf. Keith Haring and Shepherd Fairey.Vimeo. OBEY Clothing, 18 June 2012. Web. 25 Apr. 2013.
Rockwood, Camila.
Biographical Dictionary 2007. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrop Publishers Ltd, 2007.
EBook Library Web,. 09 April 2013
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