Haring moved to the Lower East Side of New York in 1978 to study painting at the School of Visual Arts. He also worked as a busboy during this time at the nightclub Danceteria.[14] While attending school he studied semiotics with Bill Beckley and experimented with video and performance art. Haring was also highly influenced in his art by author William Burroughs.[8]
In 1978, Haring wrote in his journal: "I am becoming much more aware of movement. The importance of movement is intensified when a painting becomes a performance. The performance (the act of painting) becomes as important as the resulting painting."[15]
To focus, To paint… KEITH!
In February 1983, Haring had a solo exhibition at the Fun Gallery in the East Village, Manhattan.[30] That year, Haring participated in the São Paulo Biennale in Brazil and the Whitney Biennial in New York.[31][32] In April 1983, Haring was commissioned to paint a mural, Construction Fence, at the construction site of the Haggerty Museum of Art in Milwaukee.[33] In October 1983, Elio Fiorucci invited Haring to Milan to paint the walls of his Fiorucci store.[34] While Haring was in London for the opening of his exhibition at the Robert Fraser Gallery in October 1983, he met and began collaborating with choreographer Bill T. Jones. Haring used Jones' body as the canvas to paint from head to toe.[35]
In 1984, Haring was included in the Venice Biennale.[31] He was invited to create temporary murals at the National Gallery of Victoria and the Art Gallery of New South Wales.[39] He also painted the permanent Keith Haring Mural at Collingwood Technical College in Melbourne.[40] That year, Haring painted murals at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and in Rio de Janeiro.[41]
Haring's swift rise to international celebrity status was covered by the media. His art covered the February 1984 issue of Vanity Fair, and he was featured in the October 1984 issue of Newsweek.[42][43] Later that year, he designed the stage set for the production of Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane's Secret Pastures at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.[44] Haring was commissioned by the United Nations to create a first day cover the United Nations stamp and an accompanying limited edition lithograph to commemorate 1985 as International Youth Year.[45] He designed MTV set decorations and painted murals for various art institutions and nightclubs, such as the Palladium in Manhattan.[10] In March 1985, Haring painted the walls of the Grande Halle de la Villette for the Biennale de Paris.[46] In July 1985, he made a painting for the Live Aid concert at J.F.K. Stadium in Philadelphia.[47] Additionally, he painted a car owned by art dealer Max Protetch to be auctioned with proceeds donated to African famine relief.[48] Haring continued to be politically active as well by designing Free South Africa posters in 1985,[49] and creating a poster for the 1986 Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament.[50]
In the spring of 1986, Haring had his first solo museum exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and he painted a mural.[51] In 1986, Haring also created public murals in the lobby and ambulatory care department of Woodhull Medical and Mental Health Center on Flushing Avenue in Brooklyn.[52]
In June 1986, Haring created a 90-foot banner, CityKids Speak on Liberty, in conjunction with The CityKids Foundation to commemorate the centennial anniversary of the Statue of Liberty's arrival in the United States.[53] Later that month, he created his Crack is Wack mural in East Harlem, visible from New York's FDR Drive.[13] It was originally considered as vandalism by the New York Police Department and Haring was arrested. But after local media outlets picked up the story, Haring was released on a lesser charge. While in jail, Haring's original work was vandalized. This mural is an example of Haring's use of consciousness raising rather than consumerism, "Crack is Wack" rather than "Coke is it."[54] He painted an updated version of the mural on the same wall in October 1986.[55]
Haring began collaborating with Grace Jones, whom he had met through Andy Warhol, for an interview magazine shoot in 1984.[58] Haring painted Jones' body for her music video "I'm Not Perfect" (1986) and live performances at the Paradise Garage.[59] He also painted Jones' for her role of Katrina the Queen of The Vampires in the 1986 film Vamp.[60] Haring collaborated with David Spada, a jewelry designer, to design the sculptural adornments for Jones.[61]
In April 1986, Pop Shop opened in Soho, selling shirts, posters, and other items showing Haring's work.[63] This made Haring's work readily accessible to purchase at reasonable prices.[64] Some criticized Haring for commercializing his work.[65][5] Asked about this, Haring said, "I could earn more money if I just painted a few things and jacked up the price. My shop is an extension of what I was doing in the subway stations, breaking down the barriers between high and low art."[64] The Pop Shop remained open after Haring's death till 2005; profits went to the Keith Haring Foundation.[63]
In 1987, Haring had exhibitions in Helsinki, Paris, and elsewhere. During his stay in Paris for the 10th anniversary exhibition of American artists at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Haring and his lover Juan Rivera painted the Tower mural on an 88-foot-high (27 m) exterior stairwell at the Necker Children's Hospital.[69][70] While in Belgium for his exhibition at Gallery 121, Haring painted a mural at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp.[71]
That same year, Haring was also invited by artist Roger Nellens to paint a mural at his Casino Knokke.[72] While working there, Haring stayed in Le Dragon, a monster-shaped guest house owned by Nellens which had been designed by artist Niki de Saint Phalle. With the consent of both the designer and the owner, Haring painted a fresco mural along an interior balcony and stairway.[73][74]
Haring designed a carousel for André Heller's Luna Luna, an ephemeral amusement park in Hamburg from June to August 1987 with rides designed by renowned contemporary artists.[75][76] In August 1987, Haring painted a large mural at the Carmine Street Recreation Center's outdoor pool in the West Village.[77][78] In September 1987, he painted a temporary mural, Detroit Notes, at the Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. The work reveals a darker phase in Haring's style, which Cranbrook Art Museum Director Andrew Blauvelt speculates foreshadowed the confirmation of his AIDS diagnosis.[79]
Also in 1987, Haring painted a mural in the Philadelphia neighborhood of Point Breeze titled 'We the Youth' to commemorate the bicentennial of the United States Constitution. Originally intended as a placeholder, a new rowhome was never built and the lot became a park. The mural underwent a major restoration in 2013 and is Haring's longest standing public mural at its original location.[81]
In 1988, Haring joined a select group of artists whose work has appeared on the label of Chateau Mouton Rothschild wine.[82] In January 1988, he traveled to Japan to open Pop Shop Tokyo; it closed in the summer of 1988.[83] In April 1988, Haring created a mural on the South Lawn for the annual White House Easter Egg Roll, which he donated to Children's National Hospital in Washington, D.C.[84] Late in the summer, Haring traveled to Düsseldorf for a show of his paintings and sculptures at the Hans Mayer Gallery.[85] In December 1988, Haring's exhibition opened at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery, which he stated was his most important show to date. He felt he had something to prove because of his health condition and the deaths of his friends Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat.[86]
In February 1989, Haring painted the Todos Juntos Podemos Parar el SIDA mural in the drug-infested Barrio Chino neighborhood of Barcelona to raise awareness of the AIDS epidemic.[87] In May 1989, at the invitation of a teacher named Irving Zucker, Haring visited Chicago to paint a 480-foot mural in Grant Park along with nearly 500 students.[88] Three other Haring murals materialized in Chicago around the same time: two at Rush University Medical Center, the other at Wells Community Academy High School.[89] The latter, was completed days before Haring's arrival in Chicago, as a sort of welcome.[90] According to Zucker, Haring sent the school a design template for the mural, which was executed by a fellow teacher, Tony Abboreno, an abstract artist, and Wells High School art students, but Haring gave it his final approval and signed it himself.[90]
For The Center Show, an exhibition celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, Haring was invited by the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center in New York to create a site-specific work.[91] He chose the second-floor men's bathroom to paint his Once Upon a Time... mural in May 1989.[92] In June 1989, Haring painted his Tuttomondo mural on the rear wall of the convent of the Sant'Antonio Abate church in Pisa.[93]
Haring criticized the avoidance of social issues such as AIDS through a piece called Rebel with Many Causes (1989) that revolves around a theme of "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil".[94] During the last week of November 1989, Haring painted a mural at the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena for "A Day Without Art". The mural was commemorated on December 1, the second annual AIDS Awareness Day. He commemorated the mural on December 1, World AIDS Day, and told the Los Angeles Times: "My life is my art, it's intertwined. When AIDS became a reality in terms of my life, it started becoming a subject in my paintings. The more it affected my life the more it affected my work."[5] From Pasadena, Haring flew to Atlanta for the opening of his dual show with photographer Herb Ritts at the Fay Gold Gallery on December 2.[95] In 1990, Haring painted a BMW Z1 at the Hans Mayer Gallery in Düsseldorf.[96][97] He traveled to Paris for what would be his last exhibition, Keith Haring 1983, at La Galerie de Poche in January 1990.[98][99] 2ff7e9595c
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