Behind Keith Haring’s Underground Art

Artist Keith Haring once wrote, “I have been drawing since I was four years old. I learned to draw from my father, who would entertain me by inventing cartoon animals. Although he never pursued an artistic career, he encouraged me to continue drawing throughout my school years. Drawing became a way of commanding respect and communicating with people.”

After experimenting with other media, Haring said, “In 1980, I returned to drawing with a new commitment to purpose and reality. If I was going to draw, there had to be a reason. That reason, I decided, was for people. The only way art lives is through the experience of the observer. The reality of art begins in the eyes of the beholder and gains power through imagination, invention, and confrontation.”

Haring began filling the blank ad spaces in New York City subway stations with quick, dynamic chalk drawings in what would become his iconic style.

“The drawings are designed to provoke people to think and use their own imagination. They…challenge the viewer to assert his or her own ideas and interpretation. Sometimes, people find this uncomfortable, especially because the drawings are in a space usually reserved for advertisements which tell you exactly what to think.”

“There is something very ‘real’ about the subway system and the people who travel in it; perhaps there is not another place in the world where people of such diverse appearance, background, and lifestyle have intermingled for a common purpose. In this underground environment, one can often feel a sense of oppression and struggle in the vast assortment of faces. It is in this context that an expression of hope and beauty carries the greatest rewards.”

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