Keith Haring was more than a ‘Street Art Boy’

Why is it that some artist blaze a trail and then disappear, while others live long in the memory?

That’s something of a mystery.

You might think it’s down to their lasting appeal – if they’re no longer fashionable, they drift out of public consciousness.

But that’s not the case with Keith Haring. He continues to inspire street artists (even Banksy has paid tribute to him via his Bermondsey painting Choose Your Weapon), and yet, 30 years after his death, is now largely unknown – unlike his contemporaries and friends Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Haring’s work still crops up in exhibitions across the globe and is hugely collectible with those in the know; perhaps this feature-length documentary will help push him back into the limelight and gain him a wider audience.

If nothing else, the Pennsylvania-born artist was down to earth. While some painters will claim they were inspired to pick up a brush by looking at the Old Masters, finding empathy with one of Mark Rothko’s canvases or loving the way Jackson Pollock dribbled colour, Haring’s passion for drawing came from his love of Dr Seuss and Walt Disney. His father Allen, an amateur cartoonist, also encouraged his son’s artistic leanings.

He originally intended to become a commercial artist, but hated the classes he attended, so decided to concentrate on his own original compositions.

A move to New York proved to be a pivotal moment. Haring loved the graffiti he saw all around him, and after spotting blank spaces at subway stations where advertisements should have been placed, Haring began drawing in chalk. The resulting works became cult hits with the public.

He later stated: “It surprised me that the work, as early as 1982, which was before I had any exhibitions, had already spread throughout the world. T-shirts appeared in Japan and sneakers in Brazil and dresses in Australia, way before I made any commercial object like that.”

Openly gay, Haring began to lose friends to Aids, and as a result, became an activist early on in the crisis. Then, in 1988, he discovered he was HIV positive; a year later he established the Keith Haring Foundation, which has a mandate to provide funding and imagery to Aids organisations and children’s charities.

“To live with a fatal disease gives you a whole new perspective on life,” he told his biographer, John Gruen, shortly before his death in 1990 at the age of 31.

Now, in Street Art Boy, director Ben Anthony re-examines Haring’s legacy, linking his story to politics and art in the New York City of the 1970s and 1980s, and all played out against the dance music the artist often enjoyed while working.

Friends and family remember him with joy, but this isn’t an overly sentimental profile – those who knew Haring are willing to point out his foibles as well as his talent and other positive qualities. As a result, we get a rounded, fair and compelling portrait of a man and the period in which he shone all too briefly.

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