Decoding Keith Haring

'Graffiti was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen'- Keith Haring

Keith Haring was born in 1958, in Pennsylvania and raised in a religious family. He developed his iconic cartoon-technique whilst at the School of Visual Arts, in 1978, in New York City. Haring was a supporter and advocator for gay rights and safe sex. Suffering from AIDS himself, many of his work brought attention to the AIDS pandemic, which occurred throughout the eighties. A famous piece of his, ‘Ignorance = Fear’ reflects the challenges people with AIDS faced at the time, as a result of it being rarely addressed in mainstream media.

To look at Haring’s socio-political themes in his work, the context of his designs must also be considered. Haring was a maturing young-adult in New York City during the Gay Liberation, taking place between 1969 and 1980. At the time, being homosexual was illegal and was considered a mental illness; after the Stonewall riots in June 1969, this rebellion incited the movement across the nation, and led to the modern gay rights movement. The LGBT community across New York City radicalized and rebelled, leading to a new generation of activist organisations.

Educated in New York City, whilst at the height of the sexual liberation, Haring was surrounded by many creative and eccentric individuals. An openly gay man himself, his work mirrored this, including many explicit homo-erotic characters. Although much of his work highlighted the importance of love and sex, it was also associated with themes of illness and death, due to his experiences with AIDS.

Haring utilised characters and items which stood for greater meaning, many of which he repeated across his artwork.

‘The Crowd’: employed to represent both positive and negative themes, ‘The Crowd’ came to embody the masses. Haring grew up watching the Vietnam war on television, a part of his childhood he later reflected across his artwork. This can be seen particularly in ‘The Crowd’, as he felt it personified mob culture, and the impact of the government on the masses.

‘The Cross’: although Haring was brought up religious, much of his artwork criticised

the way the church suppressed its people. Some of his art depicts specific stories from the Bible; one famous one being the martyrdom of Saint Peter, who was hung upside down on the cross. In addition, Haring often used the cross to highlight scenes of torture and anguish in his work.

‘The Dog’: Haring used the dog as a reflection of the ancient Egyptian God, Anubis, who was believed to watch over the dead. It is often understood as being a mythical representation of humans, regularly seen in partnership with human-like figures.

Stomach with a hole: often seen alongside Haring’s infamous ‘don’t shoot’ gesture, the stomach missing a centre is used to transform humans into targets. Moreover, it is suggestive of an emptiness within all people. A further representation of ‘outsiders’ that Haring used was the dotted figure. This came to embody any and all people rarely shown in the media e.g. POC, homosexuals

‘The Embrace’: a frequent symbol of Haring’s work is ‘the embrace’; gender-less, race-less figures grasping onto each other. Haring’s work, although regularly targeting socio-political injustices, aimed to encourage pure humanism and love for one another.