American street artist Keith Haring once said: "Graffiti is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen." I want people to experience art less depressingly. Art can be touched, felt, and even manipulated. Art is not so serious and condescending. ”
Born in 1958 and famous in the 1980s, Keith Haring's graffiti was once distinctly artistic and social, focusing on issues of justice in society – from the phenomenon of nuclear proliferation to AIDS and the environment, from race to income inequality.
The Paper, Art Review, walks into the "Meet Keith Haring – Post-Pop Fashion Art Exhibition" and joins readers in watching his "glowing babies," roaring dogs, and heart-raisers.
"Meet Keith Haring – Post-Pop Fashion Art Exhibition" was recently exhibited in Beijing, presenting 109 works (groups) created by street artist Keith Haring, divided into six exhibition units, namely "New York is my canvas", "They are all my friends", "My language is a symbol", "Creation is endless", "In the name of art", "Everyone can", each unit of works focuses on a theme, mainly exhibiting lithographic works. In addition, in the exhibition design, the curator also reproduced scenes of Keith Haring's artistic creations, such as subways, bars, shops, etc., to reproduce Keith Haring's street graffiti culture.
According to the organizers, many works exhibited at the Tate Gallery in the UK, including "Two People with Hearts", "Tony Chaflaz Gallery", "Keith Haring Lucio Amelio Gallery Solo Exhibition", "Pisa 89" and many other works exhibited at the Tate Gallery in the United Kingdom.
"New York is my canvas"
In the 1950s, Pop Art began to take to the artistic stage as a rebellion against Abstract Expressionism. Artists have pieced together those things that originally do not have aesthetic characteristics according to artistic conception, making them detached from their original attributes and setting a precedent for "combining" art in form. In the early 1980s, a strange chalk drawing began to appear on the subway advertising blackboard in New York, and people disdainfully called it "graffiti", and Keith Haring was one of the graffiti. A few years later, the seemingly unremarkable man who was keen to wander the streets became the pop master of art history.
In bustling New York, Keith Haring found an efficient medium that allowed him to communicate more broadly with his audience. Noticing the presence of a large number of unused advertising blackboards in the subway station, he began to draw pictures in white chalk here, and he created cartoon images such as monochromatic, hollow abstract villains, roaring dogs, and glowing babies, which became the starting point of Harlem's public art.
The exhibition site "recreates" the New York subway
Haring, a newcomer to New York, found that outside the museum system, an underground art community was also active—the streets, subways, bars, and ballrooms of Manhattan's East Village. Harlem often visits 57 Bar near the school, home to some of New York's hippest artists of the '80s. Here, he met friends such as Kenny Schaffer and Madonna, and organized and participated in activities here. In 1981, Haring held his own solo exhibition at the bar. 57 Bar also became Haring's first stop in New York's avant-garde art scene, leading to his collaborations with several artists and the recognition of his work by authorities into museums.
Keith Haring was drawn to blank billboards in the station. Haring is keenly aware that the subway has an absolute advantage in cultural popularity. He began using white chalk and quickly drew patterns on black canvases. New York became his canvas. His iconic graffiti caught the attention of commuters, and Harlem's influence expanded rapidly. Haring's goal is to break down the boundaries of art and make art accessible to everyone, and he wants his work to interact closely with the audience.
Keith Haring paints in the subway
"I became intrigued and fascinated by the graffiti I saw on the streets and on the metro. Graffiti is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I want people to experience art less depressingly. Art can be touched, felt, and even manipulated. Art is not so serious and condescending. Keith Haring said.
It is worth noting that Haring's work in New York has not been smooth sailing. While attracting public attention, Harlem also attracted the attention of the police. He has been arrested several times on suspicion of deliberately damaging public facilities. But Haring didn't dismiss the episodes as setbacks, saying, "More than once, I was handcuffed by a police officer and taken to the police station. To his dismay, however, the other police officers in the district were all fans of mine and were eager to meet me and shake hands. ”
Keith Haring lives and works in The East Village, New York. Here, Haring has a large social circle, and Keith Lin and Andy Warhol met in New York in 1984, when Harlem was hosting his second exhibition at the Tony Schaflaz Gallery in New York. Both Harlem and Warhol have admiration for Walt Disney. In the passionate image "Andy Mickey Mouse," Harlem combines two of his heroes, Disney and Warhol.
Keith Haring paintings
Symbols as language
Keith Haring excels at translating symbols into visual languages. The recurring symbols in the work are harlem's way of communicating with the public. After years of running-in, people have a deep understanding and cognition of Harlem's symbols. Whether Haring has explained his symbols clearly or not, everyone can perceive the deep meaning contained in the symbols. The meaning behind these symbols was key to Haring's emergence as one of the most influential artists of the 20th century.
Harlem's most famous symbol is the "glowing baby." Haring once described the little baby as "the purest and most positive experience in human nature." Haring weaves the infant crawling posture with glowing lines, and this ignorant posture makes the artwork more innocent. Haring is said to have created this symbol because of a revelation derived from religious studies. When Haring placed the sparkling little baby in a dark space, people began to associate the baby with the artist himself.
In the lower right corner is Keith Haring's representative "glowing baby" image
Haring's clumsy and cute heart-raising child has also appeared many times, intuitively expressing a kind of love and warmth.
Haring's clumsy and cute little child holding his heart
While Keith Haring's artwork is always colorful and vibrant, Haring also speaks out for tough and challenging social themes. This is not limited to the United States, and Haring dares to cry out for inequality around the world.
His art has always focused on issues of justice in society – from the phenomenon of nuclear proliferation to AIDS and the environment, from race to income inequality.
For example, when creating the following work, Haring looped Marvin Guy's classic album What's Wrong with the World? 》。 He introduced: On this album, he pessimistically questions the future of the world. The rest of the time, listen to Bob Marley's songs about oppression and the people's struggle for freedom. Sometimes, music is the "background" of a painting, but sometimes it is an important part of the creation of a work. These paintings are all about the earth we live on and the heavy task of trying to save it despite all the difficulties we face.
Keith Haring's work focuses on social issues
Nuclear Weapons Sanctions
During his artistic career, most of his works responded to many popular social problems that emerged in the 1980s. Between 1982 and 1989, he created more than 50 public works. Many of them were created for charity centers, hospitals and orphanages. In the work, Haring boldly and firmly stated his position and attitude, doing his best to protect those in need.
Keith Haring's works that care about the situation of AIDS patients, in which the villain exudes a sad look
In 1985, Keith Haring planned and organized a welfare event called "Dancing in the Rain" for the United Nations Children's Fund For Africa Emergency Freemasons. The theme of the poster is rain, which stems from the connection between rain and water, and water is essential to solve the problem of dryness and famine in Ethiopia. In the poster, each artist defines rain from his own perspective. These images represent the creations of different artists.
Poster of the "Dancing in the Rain" event
Meet street artist Keith Harlem
Every street art lover may want to make a pilgrimage to the front of Keith Harlem's work.
Born in 1958, Keith Haring became famous in the 1980s as an American street painter and social activist, and his graffiti was once distinctly artistic and social, but also woven into popular culture and became an important part of trend art. His public murals have been auctioned off one by one, and are now scattered in New York, Pisa, Ulm, Paris and other places, with his only remaining precious graffiti that people can punch.
Looking back on Keith Haring's creative career, in 1982 he painted his first famous large-scale mural on an abandoned wall on Houston Street in Manhattan, New York. The "blank canvas" in Keith Haring's mouth refers to this wall, which covers an area of about 70 square meters, and he paints day and night, and the garbage piled up on the side of the road does not affect him at all. The pattern in the picture is very symmetrical, the crowd is dancing, and the large area of orange is extremely eye-catching, so that pedestrians who pass by keep taking pictures and videos.
Keith Harlem street painting
Another of Keith Haring's works is hidden in a stairwell in Grace House in uptown Manhattan, New York. It was a Catholic youth center, and Harlem didn't sketch, he painted it in black paint. The entire building is five stories high, and this mural spans three of them, which he successfully completed in one night. Harlem's iconic elements include 13 species, including glowing babies, barking dogs and dancing little people. But by 2017, the painting was no longer visible to the average viewer because it was carefully removed and preserved, and then it was placed at the Bonhams auction house in New York for $3.86 million, setting a record for the auction of his murals.
Keith Haring graffiti
Ulmminster Cathedral, located in the german city of Ulm. The entire layout of the city revolves around the cathedral in the heart of the city. This church is a typical Gothic building, the east side of the twin towers side by side, the west side of the church main tower soaring into the clouds, it from design to completion, has experienced nearly 600 years of vicissitudes, condensed the wisdom of generations of craftsmen. In the square next to the church, there is a very different style of art building "Red Dog", that is, Keith Haring's representative pattern "Barking Dog". The direct, vivid and strong red dog forms a wonderful artistic atmosphere under the towering Gothic architecture.
The "Red Dog" in front of the Cathedral in Ulmminster, Germany
Keith Haring, who has always had a strong political concern, also left his own works on the Berlin Wall. The Berlin Wall is not only a testimony to history, but also a record of the development of graffiti culture from the 1980s to the present. Artists and ordinary people crossed the fence and painted the idea of peace on the Berlin Wall with brushes and spray paint. Keith Haring was also invited by an art museum in West Berlin to participate in the graffiti of the Berlin Wall, in more than 200 square meters of paintings, yellow, red and black represent the colors of the east and west German flags, and his iconic villain hands and feet are closely linked, representing the unity of the crowd will be able to destroy the wall, East Berlin and West Berlin should not be separated. The Berlin Wall was completely demolished in 1989, leaving only a small section of the wall as a historical witness. Although Haring's graffiti work has disappeared, he believes that the permanence of graffiti art is not important, and for graffiti works, the moment it is produced is already eternal.
Keith Haring graffiti on the Berlin Wall
In 1989, a large fresco of 180 square meters appeared on the wall of the Monastery of San Antonio in Pisa, Italy, by Keith Haring. Titled Tuttomondo, harlem spent four days, and Haring called it "one of my most important projects." Today, in addition to taking souvenirs in front of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, this wall has also become a must-visit place for travelers.
Keith Haring's "The Whole World" on the wall of the San Antonio Monastery in Pisa, Italy
Keith Haring once said: "I became interested and fascinated by the graffiti I saw on the streets and on the subway. Graffiti is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I want people to experience art less depressingly. Art can be touched, felt, and even manipulated. Art is not so serious and condescending. ”
It is reported that the exhibition is hosted by Beijing Zhongchuang Cultural Tourism Cultural Industry Group and Beijing Yintai Real Estate Co., Ltd., and hosted by the Meet Museum. The exhibition copyright is licensed by the Keith Haring Foundation, the work is loaned by the Joseluis Ruperez Collection, and the exhibition public welfare partner is the Beijing Yintai Charity Foundation.