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Keith Haring

This research paper will examine the work and philosophy of American artist Keith Haring as it relates to the American experience. Haring is one of the best known contemporary artists and helped shape the culture of the 1980s, gaining recognition at an early age with breakthrough works of art that grew out of, and fostered, the culture he lived in. His art was grounded in his philosophy. As he wrote in his journal in February 1987,

It's about understanding not only the work, but the world we live in and the times we live in and being a kind of mirror on that. I think it happens really naturally and inevitably if you are honest with yourself and your times (Redd, 1997).

Keith Haring was born in Kutztown, Pennsylvania in 1958, and went to New York City at age 19 to study at the School of Visual Arts. Prior to studying in New York, Haring attended the Ivy School of Professional Art in Pittsburgh, and became involved with the Pittsburgh Arts and Crafts Center. But it was in New York City that he made his mark. He started as a graffiti artist in the city's subways and by the time of his death at age 31 in 1990, he had become one of the most prolific, humanistic, and popular artists of his time. His art, his influence and his activism have lasted well beyond his death from AIDS.

Harding's philosophy of art was based on his belief that art needed to be demystified in order for it to be accessible to all people, not just well-to-do gallery and museum goers. "One of his great efforts was to make his work accessible to people who normally don't have access to art....he was working to knock down those barriers between expensive art and commonplace objects" (Redd 1997).

The form Haring found to express his philosophy was public art. His chalk drawings of simple outline figures of dogs, dancers, snakes and other basic images started to appear on unused advertising space in New York's subway stations in 1980. He was influenced...

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Keith Haring. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 19:40, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1709600.html