Artist, Keith Haring’s mural, Crack Is Wack at Crack Is Wack Playground, 128th Street and Second Avenue, Harlem, exemplifies the power of his spontaneous, unsanctioned public art. This work was made in a single day in 1986 with permission of NYC Parks authority, but only after an earlier work by the artist had led to his arrest. The grassroots campaign in support of the artist, spurred by major newspapers and city officials alike, resulted in a reduced charge and invitation to create a permanent version of the mural. It’s inspired by his studio assistant, Benny who was addicted to the drug. [The work was restored in 2019.]
Choose Your Weapon by Banksy (2010) nods to the inimitable visual language that we now connect to Keith Haring. Photo: © futureperfectart.blogspot.fr.
Keith Haring mural at Necker Children’s Hospital, Paris 15.
Art student, Keith Haring arrives in the cradle of the now more than ten-year-old graffiti movement, New York in 1978, and becomes accustomed to a new and frenetic energy: the graffiti art scene.
Influenced by this ‘subway art’, Haring cuts his own path in the scene, and begins drawing illegally in white chalk on empty black advertising poster panels in subway stations.
Photo: Keith Haring.
Paris’ latest show of indoors works by the artist, “The Political Line”, is split between two venues: the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and Centquatre.
Keith Haring retrospective exhibition, “The Political Line” at Le Musée d’Art Moderne and Centquatre. Photo: Fernanda Hinke © 2013.
“The Political Line” exhibition, Paris. Photo: Fernanda Hinke © 2013.
Keith Haring painting on show at at Le Musée d’Art Moderne and Centquatre.
Keith Haring, “The Political Line” at Le Musée d’Art Moderne and Centquatre.
Keith Haring, “The Political Line” at Le Musée d’Art Moderne and Centquatre.
Keith Haring, “The Political Line” at Le Musée d’Art Moderne and Centquatre.
Keith Haring’s visual language includes a great many dancing figures, hearts, angels, pyramids, UFOs, symbols that have entered into the common Western lexicon.
The French artist, Speedy Graphito, a first generation Parisian street artist paints in a way that is strikingly similar. Speedy is often referred to as the French Haring, similarly to how another first generation Parisian street artist, Jef Aérosol, is referred to as the French Banksy.
But where Jef Aérosol and Banksy’s oeuvre meet is superficial, that is, they each paint using spray paint and stencil and are musicians. Speedy and Haring actually painted a wall together in 1985 for a Parisian nightclub, a meeting spot at the time. Speedy’s work shares similar stylistic and thematic codes to Haring’s.
Speedy Graphito, Paris 5. Photo: Speedy Graphito.
Speedy Graphito, Paris 13. Photo: Speedy Graphito.
We contacted Speedy Graphito about Haring and he answered us back, as follows:
What about the life and career of Haring?
“[Haring’s] career was meteoric and highly publicised. I share in the idea that the artist must live in his time and seep into everyday life. Keith Haring had worked extensively on derivatives to disseminate his work. The untimely death of Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat made them icons. I would have liked to see the evolution of their work.”
Photo: Keith Haring.
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Keith Haring’s “The Political Line” runs until August 18, 2013, simultaneously at Le Musée d’Art Moderne and Centquatre.
Musée d’Art Moderne’s website, here.
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Speedy Graphito’s solo show in Los Angeles opens May 11, at the Fabian Castanier Gallery.
[Adapted from an article published on 30 April, 2013]