Keith Allen Haring

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Keith Allen Haring was born on May 4, 1958 in Reading, Pennsylvania and died February 16, 1990, only 31 years old in New York, is an artist, draftsman, painter and American sculptor of the 1980s.

History

Keith Haring, son of Allen and Joan Haring, is the eldest of three sisters. He spent his childhood in Kutztown. He is raised in a family where discipline and a certain conservative spirit reigned.

At the age of 18, he took advertising design classes at Pittsburgh's Ivy School of Professional Art, but he realized that it did not suit him, so he devoted himself to his passion: drawing. He feels quickly locked up in this city and decides to go to New York to meet new people. Upon arrival he enrolled at the School of Visual Arts.

He tries out disciplines such as collage, painting, installations, video, etc., but his preferred mode of expression is drawing. He tests several supports to paint (metal, found objects, body ...). He never sketches before, and always paints very quickly.

In New York, and more particularly in the East Village, he discovers the abundant alternative culture of the 1980s which, outside galleries and museums, is developing its expression in new territories: streets, subways, warehouses, etc.

He meets New York underground artists such as Kenny Scharf, Madonna, Jean-Michel Basquiat, with whom he becomes a friend, and organizes or participates in exhibitions and performances at Club 57 and Mudd Club, which become the favorite places of the avant-garde elite. It was at Club 57 that the Radiant Baby, one of the most famous pictograms of the artist, was created.

The rays around the baby represent his energy, this symbol symbolizes life, joy and hope for the future.

In addition to being impressed by the innovation and energy of his contemporaries, Haring was also influenced by the work of Jean Dubuffet, Pierre Alechinsky, Brion Gysin and Robert Henri The Art Spirit's manifesto.

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Style

Like other American artists of the 1950s and 1960s who had promoted the art of the real, Keith plunged him into reality in a completely unknown way.

Inspired by graffiti, holding Bad Painting, and anxious to reach a wide audience, Haring begins to draw with white chalk on black billboards of the New York subway. He also carved sidewalk sandstone slabs in the East Village, which are still visible. A photographer, Tseng Kwong Chi, constantly photographs him, even when the police stop him. He thus executes several thousands of drawings, with energetic and rhythmic lines.

His paintings are part of the general movement of contemporary art, not just of the strict free figuration. The Haring label is the infinite repetition of synthetic forms highlighted by black with bright, illuminating colors, on different supports. It is a permanent narrative where one can find four-legged babies, dolphins, television sets, yapping dogs, snakes, angels, dancers, androgynous silhouettes, flying saucers, pyramids or revivals on the move, but also sexuality and the death drive. It was partly inspired by the drawings of the Nazca desert.

The world around him becomes beautiful because he is in his image by the freshness of the truth and the sincerity of his art. A close art without concession easy to access but deep, simple for children and too complicated for adults.

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His first solo exhibition took place in 1982 at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in New York and was a huge success. In New York, he established relationships with the artists of Free Figuration, with whom he will intervene during his many subsequent trips to Paris.

In 1983, he participated in the biennale of the Whitney Museum and the Biennial of Sao Paulo.
In June 1984, he was presented at the exhibition "Trends in New York" at the Luxembourg Museum and at the Venice Biennale, then in December opened at the ARC Museum of Modern Art in the city of Paris the large exhibition "Figuration libre, 5/5, France / USA" where, with Robert Combas and Hervé di Rosa, it covers the walls of the fresco museum. In 1985, he was invited to participate in the Biennale of Paris, then in December enjoyed his first solo exhibition in a museum, at CAPC Bordeaux.

His international notoriety continues to grow and he participates in many international exhibitions. He also executed many murals, in 1984 in Sydney, Melbourne, Rio de Janeiro, Minneapolis and New York, in 1986 on the Berlin Wall and in 1989 in Pisa. He also received prestigious commissions such as, in 1987, the monumental sculpture Red Dog for Landois in Münster and the fresco of the Necker Hospital in Paris. In 1988, he was honored to be chosen to create the 1988 Rothschild Sheep Castle vintage label.

In his desire to meet a wide audience and to make his art accessible to the greatest number, he opened, in 1986, in the neighborhood of SoHo, his Pop Shop at 292 Lafayette Street, where he sells his products (clothes, posters, etc.) illustrated by himself, as so many "retail" works. This controversial approach in the arts is nevertheless strongly supported by his friends and mentor Andy Warhol. Her work has led her to collaborate with artists such as Madonna, Grace Jones, Timothy Leary and William S. Burroughs.

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Humanitarian

Keith Haring throughout his career has a humanitarian commitment against the concerns of his time: racism, apartheid, homophobia, discrimination, nuclear ... He then signs works that denounce by their content prejudices social.

Aware of the drug epidemic that reached the city of New York, in 1986 he directed the fresco The Crack is Wack in protest. Without permission, he painted the walls of a handball field on 2nd Avenue, to warn against the harmful effects of crack. The fresco is then protected and even restored in 2007.

The artist is also committed to responding to public commissions around the world so that his art is appreciated by all. He creates frescoes for hospitals, orphanages ...

In 1986, for the 100th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty, he worked with children to create a fresco.

In France, he is involved in the fresco of an outside wall of the Necker Hospital in Paris in 1987.

His commitment also continues frontally with his participation in painting classes given to children in schools and museums in New York, Amsterdam ... He also helped to design designs for programs that promote education.

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End of his life

In 1988, Keith Haring learns that he is infected with the AIDS virus. He is therefore strongly committed to fighting this disease, putting his art and notoriety at the service of this cause and its visibility. He created the Keith Haring Foundation in 1989 to help children and support organizations working on AIDS.
That same year, Jean-Michel Basquiat, the other emblematic painter of free figuration, died of an overdose in New York. Haring affected by this death will dedicate a tribute in tribute to A Pile of Crowns, for Jean-Michel Basquiat.
In February 1990, at the age of 31, he died of complications due to his illness.
In accordance with his wishes, the posthumous donation of one of the nine copies of his last work, The Life of Christ, a triptych gilded in white gold reflecting his last spiritual concerns will be made by his foundation in June 1994 for the benefit of the Saint John the Divine Cathedral of New York, place of his funeral service and a second by the Spirit Foundation of Yoko Ono for a church in Paris. Jean-Jacques Aillagon will have him deposited at the Saint-Eustache church, then parish of reception of the AIDS patients in Paris, city particularly appreciated by the artist and where Yoko Ono will spread some of his ashes. A third altarpiece was installed in December 1995 at the Grace Cathedral in San Francisco with the participation of Yoko Ono, in the interfaith chapel of AIDS created for the occasion.

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