Although American graffiti artist Keith Haring died in 1990, he and his work are still popular around the world and remain avant-garde representatives of trend culture.
Haring's work is no stranger to it, as his graffiti symbols are everywhere. Little people with love, creeping babies, barking dogs, smiling faces with three eyes – these extremely simple graffiti are the signs of Haring's vividness and vitality. They appear on T-shirts, shoes, homes, badges, strollers, playing cards and stickers, as well as in luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton and Vivienne Westwood. Tide brand Supreme, Tide Play Bearbrick, and Molly have also released Harlem's co-branded designs in recent years.
On March 12, Keith Haring's largest solo exhibition to date, "Meet Keith Haring: Post-Pop Fashion Art Exhibition", opened in Beijing. Curator Kong Bochuan told CBN that the 109 pieces (groups) of authentic works in this exhibition have been exhibited in museums such as the National Museum of Contemporary Art in France, the National Gallery of the Netherlands, and the Tate Museum in the United Kingdom. After three months of exhibiting at the Beijing Meet the Museum in Space, all the works will be exhibited on a tour to the Shanghai Meet Museum.
Across the globe, Haring's work has been a popular choice for exhibitions around the world. Last month, Keith Haring: Radiant Vision just concluded at the Naples Art Exhibition, followed by Keith Harlem: A Glorious Legacy at the Michener Museum of Art, usa, and a joint exhibition of artists at the NSU Museum of Art.
At the "Meet Keith Harlem Post-Pop Era Trend Art Exhibition" held in Beijing, although it was a weekday afternoon, the crowd at the exhibition site was still endless.
When designing the exhibition, Kong Bochuan recreated harlem's artistic creations, from the platform of New York's Fifteenth Avenue, subway cars, club 57, to Harlem's Pop Shop, all trying to restore the United States in the 1980s and 1990s, when street graffiti culture was booming.
Street graffiti culture
The exhibition opens with the New York Subway. The subway is the main means of transportation in New York and the canvas of graffiti artists such as Harlem.
In the mid-1980s, the New York Subway, which averaged 6.5 million passengers a day, was a natural gallery for graffiti artists who couldn't afford it, and graffiti masters competed to paint on the subway, even if it was short-lived, even if they were arrested by the police before they were finished, and enjoyed the excitement of free creation.
Born in 1958 in Harlem, eastern Pennsylvania, usa, he entered the School of Visual Arts in New York at the age of 20, and although he did not receive a degree, he was deeply influenced by the academy's masters, including American concept artist Joseph Kosus and visual artist Simone Foti.
By the time Harlem was in New York, American graffiti culture had reached its peak, and street art flourished on New York's Lower East Side. Baschia, a black artist, was also interested in creating outside the gallery, which was also Haring's interest— not needing paper, risking arrest every time he created, which meant that it had to be created quickly and accurately.
In the exhibition's documentary, Haring walks out of the subway car with the crowd, quickly finds a wall, picks up chalk and begins to paint on the spot of the empty black billboard. His brushes are extremely fast, do not require sketching, and look identical symbolic graffiti, full of rhythm and beauty. His paintings are always of thick lines of little people, stretching out their arms and legs as if they are dancing, which has also become his graffiti label.
Haring once said that he needs a large audience, and the subway is the best carrier. "Art is for all, and the public has the right to own it, but most artists ignore the public."
On an abandoned wall on Houston Street in Manhattan, New York, Haring painted his first large mural, which measures about 70 square meters. Although there is no text in his graffiti, it clearly expresses his concerns about social issues: the Cold War, apartheid in South Africa, AIDS, environmental protection, how capitalism is exacerbating inequality, etc.
"Haring is very good at translating symbols into visual language. His works appeared on the subway and on the streets, reflecting the very important social issues of the time, which is an important reason why he is still loved today. Kong Bochuan said.
After living in New York for two years, Haring became famous in the art world. In 1986 alone, there were more than 100 american media reports about him.
He was invited to Germany to paint on the Berlin Wall, and in Philadelphia, San Francisco, Antwerp, Berlin, Paris, Melbourne and other places. Today, in Pisa, Italy, Barcelona, Spain, Paris, France and other places, there are still a few Harlem street graffiti works scattered, becoming a local art punch card.
At the exhibition, the viewer can see many of Haring's masterpieces at the peak of his creation, both his "Andy Mouse" with Andy Warhol and his process of graffiti on Grace Jones's body. In his creation at the end of his life, he not only used a series of works to advocate for the prevention and treatment of AIDS, but also paid attention to social topics such as child psychology, animal protection, the global environment, and nuclear weapons sanctions.
Break down barriers between art and business
"Keith Haring was one of the first artists to break down the barriers of art business." Kong Bochuan said that Harlem's street culture has flowed around the world, influencing many artists and people, and making more ordinary people associate with art.
During his lifetime, Haring worked with German BMW, Swedish Absolute Vodka, American Good Color Cigarettes, Swiss watch Swatch, and sports brand Adidas. The Beijing exhibition also fully presents the artist's commercial cooperation with these brands, from poster design to co-brand design.
For many art institutions, especially museums, Harlem is a rebel against traditional art. Time magazine critic Robert Hughes derided his work as "boring," arguing that his work didn't deserve to be taken seriously, and that graffiti was clearly not advanced enough for the artistic elite.
Haring embraced business without hesitation, passing on his art as much as possible. His friend Madonna often wore clothes printed with Harlem graffiti, which extended his fame further into fashion circles.
"If I only paint in the gallery, it will frustrate me." Haring opened his own Pop shop in 1986, an art shop that sells derivatives of his art, from hoodies, T-shirts, hats, badges, keychain stickers, and his graffiti. He's like a doodle on the subway, opening the doors of the store so that people can buy his art for a few cents, "Pop shop makes my work more accessible." I want to attract more people, and my artwork belongs not only to collectors, but also to children. ”
In today's art auction market, collectors are willing to buy his work at a high price. In 2016, Sotheby's sold four Harlem paintings, including The Last Rainforest, painted in 1989 when he knew he was dying, for more than £4 million. In 2019, an 85-foot-tall mural sold for $3.85 million at Bonham Auction House, a mural Harlem created for children at the Catholic Youth Center.
Harlem undoubtedly opened up a whole new business world for art. Inspired by him, a large number of contemporary artists such as Takashi Murakami, Yayoi Kusama, and Kaws have been influenced by him, and their works can be sold at sky-high prices in art galleries, while the trendy surrounding can also be collected by the public at popular prices in art shops. Now, art derivatives have developed into a huge commercial market, which is not only a hot spot for investment in the field of culture and art, but also a good medicine for young artists to "make a living".
In March 1987, when Haring realized that he might have contracted AIDS, he wrote frankly: "My days are numbered, I want to work as fast as I can, art is more important than my life." Speaking about death in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, he said: "Death is not a restriction, it can happen at any time. If you live this way, death is irrelevant. Everything I'm doing is what I want to do the most. ”
Throughout 1989, he worked like crazy, busy until two months before his death.
On 16 February 1990, Haring died of complications from AIDS at the age of 31. Although he eventually lost the battle, his advocacy for AIDS and his contribution to the art world was indelible. Haring founded his own foundation before his death to support and fund the AIDS community, and to this day, the Harlem Foundation continues to fulfill its mission, supporting hundreds of projects related to youth, community, the arts, and BGT.
In his short lifetime, he completed nearly 50 one-man graffiti performances, leaving behind 45 murals around the world (only 10 remain today). After his death, his works were collected by MANY major art institutions in the world, such as MOMA and the Whitney Museum.
"The most important significance of Haring's pioneering artistic trend is that his works not only carry sharp and profound social issues, but also can be accepted by the public with the simplest symbols. People don't need to know art to be close to his work. Kong Bochuan said that Harlem broke the antagonistic relationship between underground art and the mainstream. To this day, graffiti has become the darling of the fashion and design circles, and luxury brands have embraced graffiti art to develop joint models, all of which began with graffiti artist Harlem.