Keith Haring's Influence On Greek Art

In the 70s and 80s, the New York art world was very different from what it is today. Subway cars were riddled with graffiti inside and out. So art was concerned the city was much more chaotic, open and experimental, and favored the ephemeral creators. Feminism and the gay revolution were part of a mixture of values favoring critical attitudes. All were in favor of art and American and international culture were accessible, democratic, rupturistas. Regardless of what seems to us to be the art of those times (one might argue that the gains were higher in the social sphere in the aesthetic), it certainly was a circumscribed to the values of the moment, who advocated the merger of the historical period revolt and imagination? Keith Haring, the prolific and talented gay artist, who belonged to that period.

Keith haring was born in Pennsylvania on May 4th, 1948. From the very beginning when he was young he started drawing cartoons drawing like the ones he saw on television. He was heavily influenced by his father Allen and popular cartoons of his time like Walt Disney, Charles Schultz, and Dr. Seuss. He studied art at the Ivy School of Art in Pittsburgh, where he started making silkscreen print on

T-shirts. In 1978, He moved to New York and later continued his studies at the School of Visual Arts in 1978 and 1979, where he was influenced by Keith Sonnier and Joseph Kossuth who encouraged him to train as a conceptual artist after the experimentation with form and color. In the summer of 1979 makes a performance entitled “Poetry Word-Things” in Club 57 of Manhattan. Haring created a visual language that included characters, slogans, colors and patterns, heavy lines and diversity of shapes and configurations. A brand easy to recognize in any medium where it is represented.

According to David Galloway in his Journal the Keith Haring Show: he stated that Keith noticed the empty advertised black wall in the subway.

Herring said: “I immediately realized that this was the perfect place to draw,” he recalled. “I went above ground to a card shop and bought a box of white chalk, went back down and did a drawing…”1 Furthermore, chalk itself proved an ideal medium for the “continuous line” that was the artist’s objective. Keith used Words like “flow” and “fluidity” reference to his own work. Those who watched him draw were regularly astonished by the speed and accuracy of his line, whether he was drawing on dollar bills, ersatz Greek vases, the body of Grace Jones, or a youthful fan’s skateboard. And like Matisse, he never erased or

corrected.”

In 1980 he began making graffiti, drawing with a pen similar to cartoons on ads in the New York subway images. Later he followed with a cartoon drawn with white chalk on black subway panels reserved for advertising. He was arrested several times for damaging public property. His frenetic activity graffitist led him to make paintings in almost all area of the New York subway, with the corresponding risk of being arrested for attacking public property; He liked this element of danger and it seemed that it was an essential ingredient content of the art of graffiti. Haring once stated: “I find the most interesting situation for me is when there is no turning back. Many times I put myself in situations where I am drawing in public. Whatever marks I make are immediately recorded and immediately on view.” And regardless of what he drew There are no ‘mistakes’ because nothing can be erased” (Fayden Online).

Although it was not New Yorker he was moved by all that was happening in New York City. Keith Haring contributed to the flowering of the gay movement and managed to reach people through his paintings on the walls and on the subway. Haring represents a highlight of the triumph of the popular culture. His sensibility fit perfectly with the zeitgeist or one might even argue that he embodied the zeitgeist.

Keith Herrings work became known and aroused the interest of many people. His iconic shapes with thick strokes began to become popular and soon received the first offers to exhibit in galleries. Then, the signs of Haring soon became the symbol of a carefree look, but also politics, and the culture that dominated the city of New York.

Haring highlighting both political and ideological point of view .One of the main objectives was that the works ceased to be a bourgeois privilege and what could happen to the society. I also knew that his "subway drawings" were the best means of expression and opposition to the "establishment" as they reach the eyes of all social strata. Soon, his name sounded worldwide as one of the leaders of the effervescent movement of urban culture that invaded half the world at this time. His activism made him travel a lot He traveled to many countries like South Africa against apartheid, to Berlin to proclaim the fall of the wall or to create great works to raise public awareness of issues such as homophobia, AIDS or crack and simply to draw a mural that people could enjoy.

In an article in The New York Times Magazine , Jeffrey Deitch, an art dealer and curator states say that Haring’s painting process if that of “a great saxophonist and a jazz solo. He would start in the upper-left corner of a wall or a canvas, and move across in perfect rhythm, never missing a beat. Other artists had to make a sketch or use a grid or system to cover the canvas, Not Haring. He had this remarkable ability to transfer the images that he saw in his mind through his body, through his hand, and onto the surface” (Moss).

Keith’s connection is achieved with the general public. His drawings recreate the universal values of life, death, love, sex and war, in a direct and powerful message that sticks in our retinas. This was one of his obsessions, and he did not believe in art for the few, if not in a public art and consequent social problems.

In fact, he created shortly before his death the Keith Haring Foundation, an organization whose goal is none other than managing its artistic heritage and to continue to support NGOs fighting for the ideals defended Haring.

The 80s were a tough decade where social differences brought many people disadvantages in the neighborhoods of New York. Haring showed from the beginning his strong belief and did not hesitate to use his art against injustices and inequalities model. He was an American artist and social activist whose work responded to the New York City street culture of the 1980s by expressing concepts of birth, death, sexuality, and war. Haring's work was often heavily political and his imagery has become a widely recognized visual language of the 20th century (Wikipedia).

Haring was the link, through training, including self-taught graffiti artists and the mainstream of young artists responsible for an abrasive form of popular expression. He expressed, racism, furious capitalism and homophobia, among other issues that still latent nowadays through graffiti, his high contrast colored art. In 1986, he painted a piece of the Berlin Wall. In 1989, he established the Keith Haring Foundation to help remedy social problems.

Like many great artists, Keith Haring died prematurely at age 31 due to AID. Amid his life, Keith Haring fought valiantly against the AIDS disease which but he was unable to defeat it. He died on February 16, 1990, in New York.

Haring was not just making art; he was simply communicating in a totally contemporary way. His art was recognized by great artists such as Warhol, with whom he had a close relationship other figures of the time like Grace Jones and Madonna were admirers of his work and today artists like Shepard Fairey and Banksy. Keith Haring, one of the pioneers of urban art as we know it; Son of pop art, comics, science fiction, rap and the underground New York in the 80’s, Keith Haring is definitely the most important street art icon ever.