Art for people, not for museums

I once asked Jean-Michel Basquiat who his favorite artist was—not meaning Picasso or Warhol, but of his own generation. He didn’t hesitate but said “Keith Haring.” I had never heard of him and I asked him to bring Keith around and I was kind of surprised when I saw this baby-faced kid with bright red glasses. Like Jean-Michel, Keith was one of a new generation of artists who wouldn’t be satisfied with hanging in the homes of wealthy collectors and in museums; they wanted an audience. They wanted to make things for people their own age, for people who couldn’t afford to “invest” in art. And that was what Pop Art was about, originally, before the marketers got a hold of it. That’s why Keith made t-shirts and radios and all sorts of products and opened his own shop in Soho to sell them in 1986. The Pop Shop was never a big money maker, but it ran for almost twenty years, taking art to the people. Of course Keith liked selling his art and making money as much as the next guy, but he also felt an obligation to his public and to society, and so long after he was making a living as an artist, he was out there doing handball courts and other highly visible public murals, communicating his concerns about crack and AIDS, and generally livening up the landscape with his delightful figures. You could even see him, still working the subways, drawing his chalk figures on the black paper that the Transit Authority used to cover expired billboards. Even when he was suffering from AIDS himself, Keith was still working tirelessly, making art in many media, and it was great to see his old murals restored around New York City, taking his message and his delightful universe to a new generation of kids. His dealer, Tony Shafrazi, is having a 20th Anniversary show this month, at 544 West 26th Street in Manhattan. It’s a great chance to catch up on one of the most important artists of our time. Glenn O'Brien see also: Keith Haring, 20 years later