Haring was a very popular street artist of the 1980’s and his work is still recognisable and well circulated to this day. I have seen a lot of haring’s work before in a more commercial and simplified form with his easily identifiable figures of people and dogs and also his NYC subway advertisement takeovers. In the news of the art world a large mural he had painted on the outside of a museum in Amsterdam had been uncovered from metal cladding and this sparked my interest again.
I followed this by reading a biography including his early more personal work. It was interesting to see his work depicting human interaction with technology, of the time TV and radio and his clear disagreement with it, with “X” displayed on many of the screens he draws. Either an instruction to stay clear and disbelieve the media that is fed to us, or a comment that it’s all empty Bullsh*t used to control the masses with widespread information and advertisement.
I was also very surprised and pleased to find so many drawings of gay sex, masturbation and scenes of alien abduction. There are some interesting and questionable images below of men having sex with each other and with dogs? which I don’t understand or necessarily wish to. I especially like the drawing of a UFO destroying a Nuclear power plant with its red laser beam. It’s interesting to see the combination of alien probing combined with Homosexual intercourse, what I think is most likely a comment on the societal view of Gay people at that time. Homophobia translated in a visual context we can understand as Alien; foreign, disbelieved and misunderstood.
I also really enjoy his coloured illustrations, their so full of life, movement and chaos. Specifically the image of the people drowning in the earths flowing blood which still resonated with todays global issues and climate emergency. He also draws the christian cross upside down which is a symbol of the anti-christ or satan, and beside that a figure which could be the devil with his neck being stretched or cut. He draws images of demonic figures and people in what I assume the pits of hell. while still maintaining his graphic, single-lined style. The three eyed face is great, painted with enamel on metal which I would love to try myself.
Haring also created a project called “Apocalypse” , In these prints he draws explosions rising high above crowds of people below, combined with satanic iconography. Demonic creatures fill the space among pieces of the human form. chaos of line, colour and pattern explode on the page. Jesus encased by rings. 666 corners a page. Mona Lisa smiles behind an eruption as if she always knew what was to unfold. inexplicable chaos as an apocalypse would be.
“But art is spilling out of its frames into subway graffiti. Will it stop there? Consider an apocalyptic statement: “Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.” – – Hassan i Sabbah. Not to be interpreted as an invitation to all manner of restrained and destructive behavior; that would be a minor episode, which would run its course. Everything is permitted because nothing is true. It is all make-believe, illusion, dream…ART. When art leaves the frame and the written word leaves the page – – not merely the physical frame and page, but the frames and pages of assigned categories – – a basic disruption of reality itself occurs: the literal realization of art.”
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