Photo Pest: Art Is For Everybody

Tuesday, July 18, 2023

Art Is For Everybody

I knew Keith loved Andy as much I do but this affectionate tribute, painted in 1985, was new to me.

Warhol's motives in collaborating with Haring may have been motivated as much by brand extension as anything else but you've got to credit Drella for recognizing the kid's talent almost immediately.

When I worked at the New York Public Library, Haring used the steps in front of the building at 5th Avenue & 42nd Street as his canvas before he became famous. I couldn't believe the speed with which his fingers sketched barking dogs, and I admired his choice of material: chalk didn't leave behind a mark that would deface a public institution. But I had no idea that the nice boy from Kutztown, Pennsylvania would soon become the most accessible artist of his time.

So I couldn't wait to see the much-hyped retrospective at the Broad. It's a TKO, particularly the colorful gallery that opens the show.

Although I'd seen the Whitney's excellent 1997 show, many of the mostly untitled works were unfamiliar.

An early collage suggests that Keith and I may have share a sensibility as well as a sexual orientation.

This shot juxtaposes two different works.

The professionals responsible for installing the exhibit did a superb job.

Someone had told me to expect penises. Lots of them.

Here's what the curators have to say about this very, very big one which, if you buy it, Haring uses to club white supremacy: "The Great White Way" is a prime example of what is perhaps Haring's greatest skill: the ability to make something look like shallow, saccharine fun- in this case, a massive, cartoonish, pink candy-striped penis-while simultaneously speaking truth to some of society's foremost tyrannies.

"The Great White Way" (1988)

"Moses and the Burning Bush" by (1985)

St. Sebastian (1984)

Like his buddy Jean-Michel Basquiat, Haring was outraged by NYPD's murder of Michael Stewart, who had been spray painting graffiti in the subway. Both artists created searing work in reaction. Haring mourned the death of Basquiat five years later after an overdose killed him .

"A Pile of Crowns for Jean-Michel Basquiat" (1988)

The practice of safe sex came too late for Haring but that didn't stop him from trying to spread the word.

Those speedy fingers of his paid off for the rest of the world. Haring left behind a great body of work before his own death in 1990, a year younger than Christ.