Haring Keith

"Art should be something that liberates your soul, provokes the imagination and encourages people to go further"

​

Keith Haring was born in Pennsylvania and he spent most of his childhood creating comics of various genres. In this way the young Keith approached drawing for the first time by creating depictions of animated characters. In 1976 he therefore chose to attend the Art Institute and Center for the Arts of Pittsburgh where he encountered the masterpieces of artists who would have had great relevance for the development of his style such as Jean Dubuffet, Jackson Pollock and Christo Javašev. In 1978 he moved to New York, a metropolis that fascinated him above all for the nightlife of the clubs and for the numerous street artists present in the city coming into contact with Kenny Scharf, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol. Faced with these new experiences, he decided to start an experimental artistic research closely linked to graffiti proposing some of the concepts underlying his style: the importance of movement in compositions and the need for art that can be enjoyed by a greater number of people. The Eighties were the turning point in his career managing not only to organize successful solo exhibitions at the Westbeth Paintes Space and at the Tony Shafrazi gallery in the Soho district, but to take part in numerous international fairs such as Documenta 7 in Kassel. Keith Haring did not limit himself solely to artistic research, but put himself at the service of political and social struggles above all to raise awareness about the diffusion of AIDS. Unfortunately he died precisely because of it in 1990.