"Mickey Mouse in the City"

KEITH HARING

Keith Haring was one of the most important artists of the 20th century. Through his street art works, and not only that, he became a spokesman for the defence of civil rights and the fight against discrimination. He was born in 1958 in Reading, Pennsylvania, where he grew up with a religious upbringing. From 1976 he attended the Pittsburgh Art Institute and then found work at the Pittsburgh Centre for the Arts where he became acquainted with the masterpieces of great contemporary artists who greatly influenced him, such as Jean Dubuffet, Jackson Pollock, Pierre Alechinsky and Christo Javacheff. In 1978, Haring moved to New York where he began his studies at the School of Visual Arts and came into contact with the city's vibrant and creative nightlife, meeting Andy Warhol, among others. He abandoned his studies to devote himself to his innovative artistic research, studying the importance of movement in compositions and the need for an art that could be enjoyed by as many people as possible. He produced his first street art works on advertising panels in the underground. In 1981, his first solo exhibition was held in New York at Westbeth Paintes Space, followed the next year by a solo show at Tony Shafrazi's gallery in the famous Soho district. In the following years he participated in numerous international exhibitions, for example Documenta 7 in Kassel, and the Whitney Museum Biennial. He produced many artworks and collaborated with companies for marketing campaigns, such as Absolut Vodka and Swatch. In 1985 Haring designed some images for the political campaign for the liberation of South Africa and in 1986 he participated in the creation of a poster for the great march for global nuclear disarmament. Also in the same year, the artist executed a mural for the Checkpoint Charlie museum in Berlin, which became one of his most iconic public works. He took the lead in raising awareness of the disease AIDS, which he himself contracted in 1988. The artist founded the Keith Haring Foundation, a non-profit organisation committed to sex education campaigns, the dissemination of prevention methods against venereal diseases and to children. Haring spent the last years of his life making public works for charity and awareness campaigns (his last mural, Tuttomondo, dated 1989, is in Italy, in Pisa). He died in 1990, due to the consequences of illness.