From his radiant baby to his famous dog, Keith Haring’s iconography can be seen in every corner of the globe, stamped on any piece of merchandise big enough to fit it. His artwork is unavoidable in this commodified world, yet the origins of his prints have been dusted away under the commotion of his commercial success. His persistent and direct promotion of authenticity and self-assurance led him to create and leave behind a legacy of inclusion, hope and acceptance within the LGBTQ+ community, whilst also pushing for political change around the globe through murals and exhibitions.
Keith Haring, born in 1958 in a sleepy town in Pennsylvania, craved for a community to be a part of, and his isolation from his peers led him to spend most of his time drawing. It was only after being hired in an arts and crafts centre in Pittsburgh and seeing the Pierre Alechinsky exhibition in the Carnegie Museum of Art did his passion evolve into a desire. He continued to hone his work and in 1978, at just 20 years old, he held his first show. On his journey there he saw a piece of paper on the ground. On one side it read ‘God is a Dog’ and on the other ‘Jesus is a Monkey.’ For some reason, this triggered a sort of punk attitude in Haring and, in collaboration with his initial success in Pittsburgh, he decided to move to New York City in the same year, ‘for the intensity.’
Haring believed that the public had a right to art. During his time in the then-labelled ‘fear city’ of post-Stonewall New York, he cemented a passion to share his messages with a world that had been shunned from the esoteric, elitist gallery system of modern art. Nurturing his talent with like-minded friends in Club 57 and similar queer communities of NYC, he explored his newfound liberty with regard to both his sexuality and creativity. In 1980 he broke onto the streets after being entranced with the fast paced, fluid nature of the surrounding graffiti scene. Having noticed the black panels covering old advertisements on the wall of the subway, he chalked his first drawing out on these. Soon Haring’s simple and eye-catching works appeared all around the city. In choosing to place his art where New Yorkers could experience it every day, he opened up a direct channel of communication with the public, effectively a hotline to share his messages to groups of people who were otherwise disconnected with the modern art world. This dialogue enabled by Haring provided the platform for a wave of progressive, radical, and taboo-challenging motifs to enter the collective public consciousness.
Cementing his style of flowing and colourful, yet also simple, illustrations, Haring created a vocabulary understood by everyone. Through his deliberate inclusivity towards accessing his art, he ensured his art was always made in the name of activism. Just as Haring’s art was explicit, so did some consider his messages to be. Unlike previous openly gay artists, in this era of liberation Haring didn’t need to hide his queer celebration. There was no requirement of a ‘double vision’ to recognise gay iconography. His images clearly featured penises, condoms, people having sex, animals having sex, and in big bold letters: ‘safe sex.’ Haring didn’t view sex as a shameful action, and this opened up a conversation. Although his explicit imagery was met with backlash which labelled it as pornography, it remains clear that his intent was far from this.
As his art gained popularity, Haring went further to provide the public with copies, opening up the Pop Shop in 1986 to sell his art on every ‘canvas’ he could for an affordable price – something unheard of in the era of commodified art. Everyone had a Keith Haring swatch or poster, all stamped with LGBTQ+ imagery. He continued to host public performances with his street art and recruited children from all boroughs of the city to take part in the 1986 CityKids Speak on Liberty banner. He succeeded in bringing both love and art to the city.
After painting walls around the globe and holding exhibitions in very popular galleries, Haring was at his peak in both his career and fame. At the same time, the HIV/AIDS crisis was also peaking. Labelled the ‘gay cancer’ or ‘gay plague’ despite affecting people of all sexualities, it tragically led to the deaths of hundreds of people, some of them Haring’s friends. The disease was deeply stigmatised. Shame and disgust followed anyone with a positive diagnosis. In 1987, as a part of his endless striving for social transparency, Haring became one of the first men of such celebrity status to publicly declare that he had been diagnosed with AIDS. Mirroring his art, Haring treated the crisis with no shame or implicitness. He had AIDS and he wasn’t going to hide it. Haring’s acceptance radiated throughout the queer community, giving comfort to many who were too afraid and shunned by society to discuss the crisis.
Unfortunately, such ostracisation holds true to this day. A stigma still surrounds HIV/AIDS, and gay men are still facing backlash from society despite many diagnosed people being able to lead a healthy, happy and sexually active lifestyle, thanks to medical advancements such as PrEP. Haring’s message is still needed in today’s queer community, and his work continues to be revolutionary in getting a conversation started.
An important line of his work, titled Silence = Death and Ignorance = Fear, shattered societal negligence on the matter. Haring reclaimed the pink triangle used in Nazi Germany to identify gay and trans people, really asserting the seriousness of the matter. A pink spotlight was cast from the shadows and, to this day, allows many people to come out and fight inequality and injustice. The way Haring broke taboos to promote widespread education against misconceptions about the crisis was ultimately accelerated by his simple, direct and ever-present images. Many young gay men have lost out on the opportunity to learn from older members of their community due to the crisis, but Haring provides an immortal image of advocacy for discussion and education that the public needs just as much now as it did back then.
Haring spoke of his messages in a 1988 interview for Columbia Art Review:
‘Generations of kids growing up now have the advantage of knowing that it [AIDS] is out there. Before it existed, it is something you never would have thought about, that you could associate love, or blood, or sperm with the carriers of death. Blood and sperm are supposed to be about life.’
A crucial stepping stone to public awareness occurred when Haring, two years into his diagnosis, laid out his entire life story and his experience of living with AIDS in a Rolling Stone article. Following this, in 1989, he established the Keith Haring Foundation and joined the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP). To this day the foundation funds LGBTQ+ projects and generates awareness through the use of Haring’s plethora of art.
Keith Haring died from AIDS-related complications on 16th February 1990, surrounded by friends and family. His legacy lives on in his immortal lexicon of symbols, always reminding us of hope, euphoria, pride and revolution. In Haring’s final years his art accelerated, carrying an optimism that his multitude of new expressions conjure up – especially in our world of social disparity. Barry Blinderman and Timothy Leary encapsulate the core of Haring’s eternal message:
‘It is certain that a truer understanding of Haring’s mission to ‘liberate the soul, provoke the imagination, and oppose the dehumanisation of our culture’ will emerge along with our attunement to the radical blurring of boundaries between science, ecology, art, and theology in the last years of this century.’
A poet, philosopher, and activist, Keith Haring saved lives and birthed new waves of art and culture. Thursday 16th February will mark 33 years since his death, yet his unrelenting spirit lives on.
