Audible Art

"Ignorance = Fear" - 1989

About the Artist

Keith Haring was born in 1958 in Pennsylvania where he became interested in cartoons and later he moved to Pittsburgh where he attended Pittsburgh's ivy school of professional art to study commercial art but then he dropped out to focus on his own style and became a maintenance worker at the Pittsburgh Center for the arts where he was able to study the work of other artists and sculptures.

He moved to New York in 1978 and he studied painting at the school of visual arts he also learned about semiotics which is basically the art of signs or symbols and during this period he started to create public works in New York's subways quickly developing a style that was recognizable to the public as uniquely Keith. As he continued these demonstrations his popularity as an artist grew and he began to organize exhibitions at club 57 with his artist friends and collaborated with other artists during the 80s to create public works and a lot of murals he befriended Basquiat and Andy Warhol among many others and a lot of his work during this time was kind of anti-commercialism which is kind of funny seeing how he had studied that for a period of time he incorporated a lot of American icons like Mickey Mouse or McDonald's logo to comment on consumerism. This is a recognizable characteristic of the pop art movement which Keith is associated with.

Over time his style evolved and he became a proud advocate for the anti-crack movement, the anti-apartheid movement, and towards the end of his life, the AIDS awareness and safe sex movements.

Haring’s subject matter changed throughout his life however his style remained relatively the same characterized by bold black lines flat areas of color and simplified forms of humans animals and other popular figures. Most people know him for his dancing people with contorted limbs and lines of shock emanating from their heads. These are the works that inspired my set for today.

"Tuttomondo" ("all world") - 1989