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Keith Haring: Art is Life, Life is Art

Keith Haring dreams of art for everyone
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This exhibition is a chronicle of a young artist who burned his soul for art like fireworks for 10 years. Like Vincent van Gogh, who burned his artful soul with color and emotion while battling mental illness for 10 years at the end of 19th century, 100 years later, Keith Haring opened his world of art while battling against AIDS for 10 years at the end of the 20th century.


Raised in a well-to-do middle class family in America and growing up absorbing pop culture of the time like cartoons, Keith Haring appeared in the graffiti art scene that represents the pop culture and the Beat Generation of the 80s. Haring, who emerged as a bad boy of the art world, was always concerned about art dying away. And his first step to keep this from happening was the Subway Drawings, a series of chalk drawings on subway adboards. “Radiant Baby,” drawn with simple lines and surreptitiously away from the eyes of the police and subway staff, was the beginning of “Art is for Everybody.” He made it easier for the public to enjoy his art through posters and music album cover designs, and launched various projects through clubs. Moreover, after finding out about his AIDS, his fear of not knowing when he would die transformed into passion for universal art and turned into deep reflection on birth, life, and death into artwork.


The exhibition to be held from November 24, 2018 to March 17, 2019 at DDP includes pieces from his early days to pieces he worked on before he was diagnosed with and died from AIDS. 175 of Keith Haring’s main artworks from 10 short years, ranging from paintings, drawings, sculptures, album art, posters, and other various media, are displayed in 8 sections, and collaboration pieces will also be exhibited.


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