May 8, 2004

keith haring

4 Comments

image12345698.jpg
Keith Haring was born in 1958. Arri­ving as a young, gay art stu­dent in New York in the late 70s, by the early 80s he was this hot down­town artist, han­ging out with rock stars and all that. By the time he tra­gi­cally died of AIDS in 1990 he was glo­bally famous and a real icon.
I like his work, even if the older I get the less I think it will be remem­be­red. He’s always been a bit of an ins­pi­ra­tion to me. Not so much for his actual work, his rock-star 80s-downtown lifestyle, or the fame and cash thing, but more as an exam­ple as some­body who just had a glo­rious time just doing his own thing. I think most artists would like to emu­late that suc­cess­fully.
When he star­ted his now-famous drawing/artist sch­tick, it could not have been less fashio­na­ble and less likely to get the art world’s atten­tion. Screw it, he just went ahead and did it any­way. I admire that tre­men­dously.
Peo­ple got a buzz from his energy and his pas­sion, and even if the work wasn’t going to add much to the canon, they were attrac­ted to it like moths to the light.
I used to think about joi­ning the art world, a-la Haring. I dunno, every time I sco­ped it out I found it impos­si­ble to meet folk I liked or trus­ted enough to com­mit to it further. The ave­rage art-world con­ver­sa­tion would get my eyes gla­zing over in under 3 minu­tes. I took that as a war­ning sign, and moved on.
It’s not what busi­ness you’re in that’s impor­tant, but the rela­tionships with the peo­ple in it. And a lot of artists starve pre­ci­sely because they for­get and/or ignore this, at the peril.

"Hugh's Daily Cartoon" Newsletter. A new cartoon sent out every weekday morning to your inbox [RSS version here.]. A wee chuckle to start your day off right etc.

Other Useful Links

Com­mis­sion Hugh.

Buy Hugh’s Art.

About Hugh. Hugh’s Book. Twit­ter. Face­book. Car­toon Archive.

Hugh’s Artist’s Sta­te­ment: “Remem­ber Who You Are”

4 Responses to “keith haring”

  1. Bret says:
    May 8, 2004 at 7:41 PM

    Heck yeah, I love Keith Haring. I pain­ted all my walls white in my room and drew Haring figu­res all over with a black mar­ker. It’s pretty cool and all the chicks dig it.

  2. Paul says:
    May 9, 2004 at 11:08 PM

    Hugh,
    Keith Haring is a home-town boy. It is a little Pennsyl­va­nia Dutch town called Kutz­town (pro­nounce the “u” like the dou­ble “o” in book).
    In the park is a large, bright-red Haring sculp­ture that was dedi­ca­ted by Yoko Ono after his death. I can assure you the ste­reotype of a small town was not appli­ca­ble that day. It was a good crowd. All who came knew that Keith was an impor­tant crea­tive artist. For many here, he is still an icon.

  3. hugh macleod says:
    May 10, 2004 at 7:29 AM

    Sure, I would be the first to agree he did his home­town proud ;-)

  4. Laren says:
    May 11, 2004 at 4:43 AM

    Did you know that I have a Keith Haring tattoo?