The Street Art Boy Next Door
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Keith Haring was the street art sensation of the 80s, but he was so much more.
I only discovered him and his work in 2019 and felt a real kinship. Sometimes you simply feel a connection with someone. I won’t even attempt to analyse it.
He was a deeply caring man, he cared about social issues and wanted to make art accessible to everyone, not just elite art world people.
His style was mesmerising. He had a natural fluidity in how he drew and painted, it was seemingly effortless. In one of his documentaries “Keith Haring: Street Art Boy” there was a scene where he was painting on a floor at his art college (SVA), covering the bright-white floor with stark-black doodles, painting himself into a corner. This song was blaring out on his ghetto blaster:
I love a lot of the music that Keith listened to. He got me into Devo in a big way, they are one of my favourite bands to listen to when I’m in that fast-painting mood at the studio.
Devo had a lot of the same values as Keith. They were huge activists. At first glance, they’re whacky, they wear these weird cones on their heads and they sing these almost parodic songs. Yet, they were deeply concerned about the Devolution of the human race and they shared this in their music.
“In music, they found a vehicle to share their dire prediction of human decay. They were DEVO, short for De-evolution.”
At The School of Visual Arts in NYC, Keith took a semiotics course (the study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation) and created a series of words using “First National City Bank”. Every anagram in this piece is like a reference to the vibrant gay scene in New York City. This pattern keeps going until Haring eventually creates the cheeky expression that gives the artwork its name. The artwork: Keith created a videotape artwork called “Lick Fat Boys” which is one of more than 130 infrequently viewed archival objects and artworks.
Whilst watching Street Art Boy on BBC iPlayer, I had the sudden urge to create a painting. This is what materialised. I love the way the work is textured and the acrylic blobs are raised from the surface. I feel that this would make a cool t-shirt design, maybe I’ll create that one day.
On 2nd April 2023, I took a last-minute trip with a friend to the Saatchi Gallery in London’s Chelsea. The biggest collection of street art shown in the UK, curated by Roger Gastman called “Beyond The Streets”. We were both blown away by the visit.
I’m sure Haring had more pieces there, but I can’t seem to find his work in my photos archives, apart from this piece:
Keith’s style was unique, people since have tried to imitate it with their own flavour added, but you can’t beat the original (I’ll name no names).
Here are a few of the photos I took from the exhibition:
All images ©Beyond The Streets / Roger Gastman
The last image is of a Kenny Scharf art piece. I got into Kenny Scharf’s work naturally after hearing about Haring. They were fellow students from their SVA days.
I will talk more about Kenny in future posts, but he weirdly looks like my biological dad, so there’s a weird kind of ‘art dad’ affection for him. He is a similar age too.
Check out Kenny’s cosmic cave at the exhibition, I was mesmerised!
To end this post: My aforementioned kinship with Haring resulted in a strange serendipitous art piece that I created in 2020:
This artwork is my tribute to Keith Haring.
Artwork created in brush pen and acrylics on what would have been Keith Haring’s 62nd Birthday, 4th May 2020.
What is strange about the above statement is that I had no idea it was his birthday until I posted my work online and a friend mentioned it. I felt an urge to paint a tribute to Keith and knowing that it was his birthday afterwards made it even more special to me.
My intention for the observer is to get a sense of Haring’s optimism and the joy he brought to the world. Created mainly in grey tones with a bright red colour pop to bring emphasis to the love he radiated.
Thank you for reading this post,
Best wishes,
P.S. Check out the Keith Haring Foundation website to see the legacy he left to the world.
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