Keith HARING: The Public Artist
Past exhibition
Overview
Period | 11 December, 2002 – 16 February, 2003
Venue | Arario Gallery Cheonan
Works | 42 pieces including installation, sculpture and painting
Opening Reception | 6pm, 11 December, 2002
Keith HARING, one of the most recognized artists of the 1980's continues to influence the art of today. This exhibition includes works with Haring's most recognizable bright cartoon characters and his later works which directly address social and political issues.
Press release
Keith HARING, one of the most recognized artists of the 1980's continues to influence the art of today. Younger artists continue to adopt his methodology and use of graphic and cartoon-like imagery. Working within the urban environment, HARING utilizes the language and theater of graffiti, a practice that is at once a highly personalized development of visual and semantic style and its inscription directly on the urban surface. Moving between the private and public realms and high art and popular culture, HARING's glyphs and symbols are repetitive and automatic gestures that communicate publicly as a language learned through graphic visual impact.
HARING's crawling babies, dancing men, barking dogs, pyramids, televisions and flying saucers are ubiquitous pictographs; we recognize these as the work of HARING and further decipher their meaning through our knowledge of his larger persona and body of work. The playfulness of HARING's images assumes a deeper cultural significance when viewed through the context of the city. Diversity within the urban environment continually reminds us of the necessary negotiation between the private needs of individuals and the larger public. Themes of interracial relations, sexual freedom, AIDS activism and social justice continually resurface throughout HARING's work; his boundless mosaics of human creatures address the issues once kept silent and celebrate the occasion of their cultural recognition.
HARING's international reputation for works created for public projects and museum and gallery exhibitions further testifies to his commitment to an art form that is accessible to everyone. In his words, "It is all about participation on a big level", and indeed this is the legacy of his work. This exhibition includes works with HARING's most recognizable bright cartoon characters and his later works which directly address social and political issues. We are honored to have the opportunity to work with The Keith HARING Foundation, Jeffrey Deitch, Julia Gruen, Suzanne Geiss and Max Lang in helping to introduce Keith HARING to the public in Korea.
HARING's crawling babies, dancing men, barking dogs, pyramids, televisions and flying saucers are ubiquitous pictographs; we recognize these as the work of HARING and further decipher their meaning through our knowledge of his larger persona and body of work. The playfulness of HARING's images assumes a deeper cultural significance when viewed through the context of the city. Diversity within the urban environment continually reminds us of the necessary negotiation between the private needs of individuals and the larger public. Themes of interracial relations, sexual freedom, AIDS activism and social justice continually resurface throughout HARING's work; his boundless mosaics of human creatures address the issues once kept silent and celebrate the occasion of their cultural recognition.
HARING's international reputation for works created for public projects and museum and gallery exhibitions further testifies to his commitment to an art form that is accessible to everyone. In his words, "It is all about participation on a big level", and indeed this is the legacy of his work. This exhibition includes works with HARING's most recognizable bright cartoon characters and his later works which directly address social and political issues. We are honored to have the opportunity to work with The Keith HARING Foundation, Jeffrey Deitch, Julia Gruen, Suzanne Geiss and Max Lang in helping to introduce Keith HARING to the public in Korea.
Installation Views
Works
