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ccrtb's review
Was reading this for one of the 2023 challenges and didn't have an easy access to it so I wasn't able to power thru the biography. I'd like to go back to it and finish it one day though
iguana_mama's review
5.0
Cross-posted at Shelf Inflicted and at Outlaw Reviews
I became familiar with Keith Haring’s artwork while doing the AIDS walk in Boston with my friend, Mark, and a few of our close friends. Though it wasn’t the height of the AIDS epidemic, there were still an alarming number of deaths. Mark wanted to walk to honor the memory of his former partner, who died two years before. Our little group did three more walks together before Mark died of AIDS in 1995.
Keith Haring’s Ignorance=Fear, Silence=Death was one of his well-known artworks that raised AIDS awareness during a time when people had little knowledge and a lot of fear. People who had the disease kept silent for fear of stigmatization. I saw it on t-shirts, buttons, and posters. It was bright and colorful, with three yellow figures against an orange background. Each figure has eyes covered, ears covered, and mouth covered, and each has a pink “x” across their chest, representing the disease.
While I was aware of Keith’s death at 31 in 1990, I knew very little about his short life.
John Gruen’s biography is a perfect introduction to the artist’s life and work. Told chronologically from Keith’s perspective and through the eyes of family, friends, teachers, lovers, peers, collaborators, and employees, the reader gets a candid and intimate glimpse into a life lived fully and passionately in between gorgeous illustrations. Keith’s unflagging energy and devotion to his creative work, even after diagnosis, is inspiring.
He was a versatile artist, starting out with chalk drawings in subways and moving on to complex designs on a wide variety of surfaces. His work was colorful, energetic, and imbued with a childlike innocence. At the same time, it was personal and intense.
Madonna said it best:
If you love Haring’s work and want a glimpse into the gritty 80’s New York art scene, this is your book.
I became familiar with Keith Haring’s artwork while doing the AIDS walk in Boston with my friend, Mark, and a few of our close friends. Though it wasn’t the height of the AIDS epidemic, there were still an alarming number of deaths. Mark wanted to walk to honor the memory of his former partner, who died two years before. Our little group did three more walks together before Mark died of AIDS in 1995.
Keith Haring’s Ignorance=Fear, Silence=Death was one of his well-known artworks that raised AIDS awareness during a time when people had little knowledge and a lot of fear. People who had the disease kept silent for fear of stigmatization. I saw it on t-shirts, buttons, and posters. It was bright and colorful, with three yellow figures against an orange background. Each figure has eyes covered, ears covered, and mouth covered, and each has a pink “x” across their chest, representing the disease.
While I was aware of Keith’s death at 31 in 1990, I knew very little about his short life.
John Gruen’s biography is a perfect introduction to the artist’s life and work. Told chronologically from Keith’s perspective and through the eyes of family, friends, teachers, lovers, peers, collaborators, and employees, the reader gets a candid and intimate glimpse into a life lived fully and passionately in between gorgeous illustrations. Keith’s unflagging energy and devotion to his creative work, even after diagnosis, is inspiring.
He was a versatile artist, starting out with chalk drawings in subways and moving on to complex designs on a wide variety of surfaces. His work was colorful, energetic, and imbued with a childlike innocence. At the same time, it was personal and intense.
Madonna said it best:
“Anyway, I’ve always responded to Keith’s art. From the very beginning, there was a lot of innocence and a joy that was coupled with a brutal awareness of the world. But it was all presented in a childlike way. The fact is, there’s a lot of irony in Keith’s work, just as there’s a lot of irony in my work. And that’s what attracts me to his stuff. I mean, you have these bold colors and those childlike figures and a lot of babies, but if you really look at those works closely, they’re really very powerful and really scary. And so often, his art deals with sexuality – and it’s a way to point up people’s sexual prejudices, their sexual phobias. In that way, Keith’s art is also very political.”
If you love Haring’s work and want a glimpse into the gritty 80’s New York art scene, this is your book.
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