Keith Haring
Keith Haring
Keith Allen Haringwas an American artist and social activist whose work responded to the New York City street culture of the 1980s by expressing concepts of birth, death, sexuality, and war. Haring's work was often heavily political and his imagery has become a widely recognized visual language of the 20th century...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPop Artist
Date of Birth4 May 1958
CityReading, PA
CountryUnited States of America
Keith Haring quotes about
I didnt start doing graffiti until two years after I got to New York. Jean Michel Basquiat was one of my main inspirations for doing graffiti. For a year I didnt know who Jean Michel was, but I knew his work.
The best reason to paint is that there is no reason to paint...
When I grow up I would like to be an artist in France.
When I die there is nobody to take my place.
Pure art exists only on the level of instant response to pure life
I am intrigued with the shapes people choose as their symbols to create a language. There is within all forms a basic structure, an indication of the entire object with a minimum of lines that becomes a symbol. This is common to all languages, all people, all times.
The act of creation is a kind of ritual. The origins of art and human existence lie hidden in this mystery of creation. Human creativity reaffirms and mystifies the power of 'life.
There is nothing that makes me happier than making a child smile.
You have to be objective about money to use it fairly. It doesn't make you any better or any more useful than any other person. Even if you use your money to help people...that doesn't make you better than somebody who has no money but is sympathetic and genuinely loving to fellow human beings.
See, when I paint, it is an experience that, at its best, is transcending reality.
Nothing is important... so everything is important.
Red is one of the strongest colors, it's blood, it has a power with the eye. That's why traffic lights are red I guess, and stop signs as well.... In fact I use red in all of my paintings.
When it is working, you completely go into another place, you're tapping into things that are totally universal, completely beyond your ego and your own self. That's what it's all about.
My contribution to the world is my ability to draw. I will draw as much as I can for as many people as I can for as long as I can.