©Jeannette Montgomery Barron, from her forthcoming book, SCENE, powerHouse Books, Spring 2013.

Four years ago I wrote the following piece on the anniversary of what would have been my friend Keith Haring’s 50th birthday. At the time, it was part of something I had been planning to compile and write for ages, which finally seemed appropriate for not only the anniversary which it signified, but also in regard to some of my own perspectives having recently moved back to New York over a decade later after Keith’s passing.

With an exhibition of Keith’s work from 1978 – 1982 at the Brooklyn Museum this month, hopefully this piece, like Keith’s work itself, will continue to be appreciated in the light of history. Below is the original 50th birthday anniversary piece, reposted again in what now also happens to be my 50th year, unedited and untouched from back in March 2008 :

I also wanted to take this occasion to celebrate his life and work here now; I have long been meaning to roll up my sleeves and put together a piece about Keith’s continued significance in the modern landscape, as well as showcase some of the works and artifacts he blessed me with over the years of our friendship. His birthday presented the perfect time and place to put it into context now, so here goes:

I first met Keith at the monday night meetings and workshops that our crew -The Soul Artists – held every week at our manhattan storefront in 1980. The meetings had quickly become notorious throughout the NYC graffiti and alternative art communities, where what was originally a small group of us from the upper west side that included Ali, Futura, Zephyr, Crunch and myself, was soon attracting the likes of Keith, Lee, Fab Five Freddy, Jean Michael Basquiat, Dondi, Blade and countless other artists who would prove influential in reshaping the art world of the times… not to mention the many journalists and curators like Richard Goldstein, Diego Cortez, and Patti Astor, who would also play pivotal roles in the movement gaining exposure and coming of age on many levels.

At that time, Keith was still working as a busboy at the night club Danceteria,while preparing his first major drawing show at White Columns Gallery, and was just starting to get serious local recognition from his saturation of remarkable chalk drawings on the NY subway stations.

Amidst a group of mainly hard core and competitive graffiti artists, Keith’s openness and generosity stood out from the start, inviting us all downtown to his upcoming shows, and also encouraging us to check out Club 57 and the Mudd Club Gallery on White street… (where Fab 5 and Futura then went on to curate another seminal art show called “Beyond Words” ) Keith quickly proved to be the embodiment of the out of towner who brings something new to the table here in NY; with a fresh eye and perspective, combined with an innate ability to understand the bigger picture, he was one of the few outsiders of that era who was clearly influenced by the style and spirit of subway graffiti, without ever confusing his relationship to or co-opting it into anything less than his own natural progression. Where Kieth brought a new academic kind of approach to the immediacy he found here on the streets of New York, I believe we all learned and benefited from some of the conceptual maturity he brought into our community too. Through Keith, we also met the curator Diego Cortez, who invited us to be in our first major gallery show at P.S.1 called “New York, New Wave”, where Dondi, Futura, Lee, Pink, Ali, Zephyr, Fab 5 Freddy and I first all showed our paintings alongside the likes of Andy Warhol, Robert Mapplethorpe, Keith, Jean Micheal, and a host of other emerging names in the New York art world.

So in my mind – though there were certainly a number of other key players - Keith was one if the first and most important links for graffiti to the art world below 14th St, and though he never considered himself a graffiti artist in the traditional sense, he came to embody the bridge between creating illegal artwork while embracing the fine art world, effectively balancing graf’s original ethos of free public minded art while still creating value and significance within the economic structure of the legitimate art market… no less than pretty much completely on his own terms at every step of the way.

And though it would take so much more time and space than just a blog to really do justice to the significance of his life and work, there are a few things I wanted to at least share from my own perspective now, as a friend, as an artist, and as someone who continues to be influenced by and benefit from some of Keith’s contributions:

Keith was the first person who encouraged me to create product, and told me that if I printed t-shirts and stickers and we could sell them in his brand new “Pop Shop” in Soho. I then printed my first “Bat Haze” t-shirts and stickers in 1984, which we sold there throughout the 80’s… Not only was that completely pivotal for me in so many ways, but Keith was really the first of our generation who truly understood and embraced, like Warhol before him, the symbiotic relationship between art and product this way:  artist as icon + recognizable style = a fluid marketable identity.

He was so far ahead of the curve of how we all eventually learned to brand ourselves via distributable product + merchandise, so far ahead of the curve of what is now ingrained in every emerging modern artist’s quest for recognition and market value. To his credit, he was also never afraid of potentially undermining his value to the elite high art world by keeping true to the populist notion of low cost / high access art for the masses… so often putting his money where his mouth was by dedicating so much time and work for free to many worldwide charities and communities. I have always felt that beyond the scope of his actual body of work, perhaps Keith’s greatest contributions were more about challenging these barriers between art, commerce and popular culture, and that he deserves more credit than people realize for paving the way for the modern “artist identity based product” that now saturates the market.

There have been many times along the way since Keith passed that I reflect with mixed feelings on how sorry I am that he didn’t live to see the way the art, design and product worlds exploded internationally along with hip hop from the 90’s to now… knowing how excited he would have been about participating in it, also imaging his indelible stamp on “streetwear” as we now know it. I remember Keith’s excitement when he was opening the pop shop in Tokyo, and his frustration at having to close it down shortly after because the bootlegging got just so out of control so fast… I also remember walking down the street in Tokyo in the early 90’s taking it all in,
being sorry I could no longer compare notes and share my successes and struggles there with him too.

I also remember stopping by Keith’s studio one day coming home from class at the School of Visual Arts - which he had dropped out of the year before I enrolled – and telling him how psyched about my class on “corporate identity” I was… He looked at me like I was totally crazy, since that world seemed to symbolize everything our movement was trying to stand against at the time. And though I was able to share the early successes of creating album cover art and starting my design studio with him, I always felt he never really got to see how the musicians and artists of our generation actually wrestled the essence of corporate identity back from the establishment in the 90’s… utilizing the existing models to empower and redefine ourselves in our own marketplace. again, it was something he would have really been excited about, and I can only imagine his continued contributions over the years.

And for reasons I almost hesitate to put into words now, I find myself influenced even more by the spirit and power of his work these days than ever. After years of focusing primarily on the always so planned out worlds of design and production, I am most drawn again to the quality and immediacy of the kind of line art that can only come from the human hand, where beauty and emotion is held in a single gesture, and where, like the purest outline of a great graffiti masterpiece or throw up, there is no substitute for the speed and confidence of total commitment to the moment. That is Keith’s work all day long, with a personal style and vocabulary that will stand the endless test of time… and it’s a beautiful thing.

Having buried and honored the passing of many good friends and major influences over the years, I have always been conscious of the fact that, at least as an artist, in the end, it often remains very much about what you left behind and the paths you chose along the way. I well remember the clarity and confidence with which Keith first told me that he had been diagnosed HIV+, being sure to tell his friends face to face first before going very public with it, as he planned to embrace his last days as fully, positively and productively as he could, also being as much a force for change and awareness of what was still a relatively new disease as possible. In a way, I saw that this awareness of his own mortality gave him a great sense of peace and accomplishment within his brief and limited journey through all of our lives… and I guess we should all be so lucky as to depart with the sense of fulfillment that I believe Keith truly felt in the end.

So with all these thoughts and sentiments, I want to honor the rare and visionary spirit that Keith was, celebrate the life and work of a great friend, and share a few of the gems from my collection of works and presents from him throughout the golden years of the 80’s…

enjoy:

One of Keith’s first publications, I believe based on the work from his drawing show at White Columns Gallery in 1980. These really give a taste of the initial development of his “radiant” dog, baby, and human forms :

This was the first Japanese magazine I ever saw here in NY, I believe in 1981. (They also produced a limited edition Levi’s style linen jacket with the cover art printed on the back, which I have archived somewhere but just couldn’t manage to find and dig out in time for this post):

Published in 1982 by his art dealer and gallery, Tony Shafrazzi, this book offered one of the first real windows into both Keith’s work and world :

It’s almost hard to recognize without all the current disney neon backgrounds, but this was as big as it got in times square back in the day:

This is one of 10 pieces he gave to friends for X-mas that year, and I believe I am one of the few, if not the only one, who didn’t sell their’s during many of our leaner years in the late ‘80s. It is painted with enamel paint on a 12’x 12″x 3” heat baked enamel coated metal box. The photos really don’t do this piece justice, and yes, I really do need to properly treat the rust on the back one of these days soon too:

Published in in 1984, “Art In Transit” contains the most comprehensive documentation of Keith’s subway station chalk drawings:

This is the invite to the second anniversary of Keith’s annual “party of life” in 1985,  which he held for many years at the old Palladium on 14th St. I bet the puzzle would look really dope put together and framed too:

This is a reproduction of a handmade book he created as a birthday present for Francesco Clemente’s daughter Nina in 1988, which was later published by Prestel in 1994:

I also reproduced a limited edition of this artwork in 2000 on T-shirts and Sweatshirts exclusively for Ships in Japan, with permission from The Keith Haring Foundation….( Thanks, Julia. )

One of my favorite signed pieces, this is the inside cover of a calendar from 1988. Keith did countless installations all over the world and this photo really gives such a great sense of his work on interior spaces:

Finally, a piece that kind of sums up a lot of what I tried to put into context at this point in time, with a good story behind it too :

In 1988, I happened to be in LA working on a project with Vision Street Wear at the same time Keith was also having the opening of a major show at the Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills. The after party for the show was at Timothy Leary’s house up in the hills on Mulholland Drive, where we all rolled to after the show…

Not only was the party exactly how I might have imagined it – complete with Barbara Leary passing out hash brownies on platters - but I remember Dr. Leary showing and explaining something to us all on a computer screen that was just way too over my head at the time…Looking back now, I think it was actually a very early glimpse into the invention of the internet, way before it seemed tangible at all. Anyway, it was a great party, an honor to meet Timothy Leary on these terms too, and Keith presented me with this inscribed copy of Dr. Leary’s autobiography shortly after we got back to NY:

This inscription in part reflects many conversations we had about how we both felt that psychedelic drug use had profoundly opened up our “vision” as artists… plus, I believe, it was also Keith’s way of projecting his understanding of the progression of great things to come, not only for myself, but in the radical paradigm shifts that would soon continue to redefine the street level marriages of art, design, fashion and pop culture… part of an endless timeline in which Keith’s life and work will continue to hold it’s own true meaning, place and value.

Eric / Haze

5/11/2008

Contributor’s note: Eric Haze will be on a panel discussing Keith Haring’s work at Brooklyn Museum on Sunday June 10th. From the moment Eric first shared this thoughtful piece to me, I knew it was something special and that more people should be able to read and enjoy it.  // Aaron Lloyd Barr

EVOL 2011 © All rights reserved by evoldaily

EVOL 2011, Hamburg, Germany © All rights reserved by evoldaily

Usually the artist creates urban stenciled work on city walls – of prison-like, pre-fab buildings and drab housing projects, but when asked to create an installation for the music festival, he was confronted with a natural landscape with grassy fields. Describing the space Evol says, “Usually I prefer to work on site by interfering with already existing structures,” but instead he found, “endless meadows, trees and blue sky.”

VOL 2011, Hamburg, Germany © All rights reserved by evoldaily

EVOL 2011 © All rights reserved by evoldaily

Evol excavated narrow trenches into the meadow to house his cityscape art, creating an even darker claustrophobic feel through this transformation. The installation also creates a metaphor for the paving over and destruction of the natural environment with concrete urban architecture.

These images below are from EVOL’s ‘Buildings’ series for Dresden Germany, in which he creates illusions of miniature buildings using stencils.

© EVOL Dresden, Buildings

© EVOL Dresden, Buildings

See more images of EVOL’s work here Evoldaily and on his website http://www.evoltaste.com/

From 'Do Not Enter Project' Long Island City, Brooklyn 2007. Mixed media on plastic, affixed to metal sign. From The Man of Sorrows collaboration with the Butoh artist, Ian Caskey. ©Dan Witz

Brooklyn street artist Dan Witz is known for his pranks and visual quips in urban landscapes. Witz integrates his work into street signage and creates installations that challenge passersby with illusions often camouflaged by habitual and mundane industrial architecture. But Witz is also a realist painter by training and works in the traditional studio in oil.

Dan Witz ABC No Rio oil and digital media on canvas 55.75 x 96 inches (142.24 x 243.84 cm)

His new show of oil-on-digital-media paintings at Jonathan Levine Gallery are photographs stitched together in photoshop and printed on canvas, then glazed and worked over using traditional painterly techniques. This new series entitled Mosh Pits is inspired by crowd scenes: photographs of people in nightclubs, at rush-hour in Grand Central Station, or of the non-human kind – packs of squirming rats and dogs. They depict masses of turbulent bodies seamlessly, but somehow sweatlessly stuck together.

Another series of portraits show his subjects ethereally lit by the glow of their mobile devices. They are captivating in the way they at once alienate and isolate their subjects within a sinister and saintly halo.

Dan Witz Mo oil and digital media on canvas 36 x 28 inches (94.44 x 71.12 cm) 37.5 x 29.5 x 2.5 inches, framed

Dan Witz Nadeen oil and digital media on canvas 26 x 20 inches (66.04 x 50.8 cm) 27.5 x 21.5 x 2.5 inches, framed

Dan Witz, Bedford Ave. Williamsburg, Brooklyn. 2006-7 ©Dan Witz

“These are real gloves I’ve altered and installed around my neighborhood. I’m calling the series “The Third Man” (after the movie). Much more to come on this project when the weather gets warmer,” describes Witz on his site.

East Village, NYC 2008. Mixed Media on Condo Wall from series 2008 Kilroy Variations Ugly New Buildings - ©Dan Witz

Dan Witz Gimp, LA Skid Row Grate

Dan Witz - Dog Diptych

Dan Witz Rats oil and mixed media on canvas 44 x 58 inches (111.76 x 147.32 cm) 45.5 x 59.75 inches, framed

Dan Witz Hand Frieze oil and mixed media on canvas 12 x 84 inches (30.48 x 213.36 cm) 14 x 85.75 x 1.5 inches, framed

Dan Witz, Mosh Pits, Human and Otherwise – Gallery I – Solo Exhibition – June 30, 2011 through July 30, 2011, Jonathan Levine Gallery, 529 West 20th Street, 9th Floor | New York, NY 10011
For of the artist’s work can be seen at: http://www.danwitz.com

The Brooklyn Griffin, © Robots, GiantRobots.co.uk

Robots an art collective in London creates public interactive sculptures, giant robots, from recycled furniture, old wood and rejects from leftover trash that prove for them, that ‘one man’s rubbish is another man’s treasure.’ The two artists, former movie-set builders, Jimmy Bumble and Leonard White, also constructed the Brooklyn Griffin on a trip to New York last year.

Slinkachu's Relics, 2009. Photograph: Slinkachu ©Slinkachu

During all the furor over Banksy’s nomination for the Oscars (he was denied the option to show up in disguise) many street artists took to the streets of Los Angeles taking advantage of the added spotlight.

D*Face in Los Angeles, Courtesy of the Artist

© Robots, GiantRobots.co.uk

Banksy, LA Trailer - This Looks a Bit Like an Elephant

Banksy LA Trailer, This Looks a Bit Like an Elephant

Mr. Brainwash in Los Angeles: http://www.unurth.com/1009722/Mr-Brainwash-Banksy-Oscar-Los-Angeles

In London Slinkachu has been getting attention for his tiny street art sculptures. And Issac Cordial’s microcosms, sometimes overlooked in pedestrian traffic, invite people to stop and take a closer look…

Follow the Leader, from Cement Eclipses series, placed in a Hackney puddle in 2010. Photograph: Isaac Cordal ©Isaac Cordal

Phlegm @ Black/Light Gallery, London, curated by Robots

A week long event of international street artists ROA and Phlegm curated by Robots is at Black/Light in London till 5th March

Three of WK Interact's skateboards, rigged with various explosive devices. Image courtesy of the artist and Subliminal Projects.

In “How to Blow Yourself Up,” which opened November 7th at Subliminal Projects gallery in LA, WK Interact twists and inverts the fatalism of end-of-the-world prophecies, turning destruction into a matter of free will. “If you believe the world will end in 2012 and you can’t do anything about it, maybe it’s better to blow yourself up when you feel like it,” says WK. To that end, he has turned objects of control and personal movement—skateboards and bicycles, as well as three-dimensional panels—into instruments of self-destruction, equipped with what appear to be pipe bombs and other menacing apparatuses.

In character with his oeuvre, WK captures the nonstop motion—both physical and psychic—of urbanism. In the past, he has used that kinetic graphic style to convey explosiveness, but in “How to Blow Yourself Up,” he creates installations that burst with dimension and color. The glowing shades in his palette, however, are clearly not intended to brighten or beautify but to alert and alarm, grabbing attention the way a safety hazard sign would.

As always, WK’s work has a tactile quality, in keeping with his name. While the interactivity of his street art stems from its incorporation into its surroundings, his gallery pieces stretch toward the viewer as if to say “I’ll reach out and touch you if you reach out and touch me.” The scale of his fine art pieces also contributes to their intimacy. On the streets, his images stretch towards infinity with only sky above; indoors, there are ceilings and corners and other confines to navigate, forcing him to work smaller. Says WK, “The more I reduce it, the more it becomes like a toy, something people will want to grab and move around.”

If “How to Blow Yourself Up” seems like a sharp divergence from WK’s street art, it is because the artist places so much emphasis on vesting context into his work. When he uses a patch of city as his medium, he first spends time investigating the location and contemplating its dynamic before assimilating his work into it. By contrast, when he is given blank gallery walls to work with, the combined effect of his pieces is akin to a cocoon—a self-contained environment.

“Artists appropriate their surroundings,” says WK, who was born in France but has lived in New York for over 15 years. “Van Gogh had the peasants who lived in his village and the flowers in the garden outside the mental hospital where he stayed. For me, it’s New York and everything about it that surrounds me—the nonstop energy, the movement, the grit, the noise. People love to put stories on top of art, to make it about something grand, but it’s very simple. It’s about an artist and a place.”

A menacing interactive element of the show's opening. Image courtesy of the artist and Subliminal Projects.

On the show’s very unique opening (WK fingerprinted and took mugshots of the patrons) the artist commented: “I was really impressed by the turn out and audience enthusiasm to partake and let me ‘book’ them. Almost 200 people [about half the audience] waited in line to be fingerprinted and have their mug shot taken, incorporating another sense into the interactive experience: touch. It’s not often I [the artist] get to be that intimate with the viewers, who actually became a part of the show through their participation and are now part of an installation which hangs in the gallery for the duration of the show.”

Image courtesy of the artist and Subliminal Projects.

Subliminal Projects

Chelsea

After the success of the last New York Street Advertising Takeover in April 2009, Public Ad Campaign organized another band of artists to liberate the mostly illegally operated NPA billboards in Manhattan and Brooklyn on Sunday, October 25. Like last time, the first wave of volunteers in OSHA-approved neon vests, buffed the ad spots with white paint, followed by a second wave of artists who added their unique touches, turning the locations into temporary public canvasses and challenging the outdoor advertising company’s claims to legitimacy.

This time, however, the NPA became hip to the widespread attack pretty quickly and responded with violence-threatening workers and lots of wheatpaste, in some cases reclaiming the space as quickly as it had been buffed and decorated. The NYPD also joined the cat and mouse game and at last count, The tally was that five people were arrested (although it’s not clear if they were whitewashers or artists) and 114 billboards were painted.

The bizarre game continued for most of Sunday: billboards would be whitewashed, then murals painted, which led way to NPA workers infiltrating the scene and wheat pasting over the fresh art with low-quality post bills.

We will be there to bring you the latest on the inevitable part three.

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