The cute, compelling and talented Keith Haring

Here's an article discussing Keith and the new doc.

He was a walking Petri dish and his "talent" was overrated and juvenile.

He had a big dick and a nice body.

I remember reading in his autobiography that he lost his virginity to a woman, and with her he realized "I was good at sex, and we had sex all the time."

Cute. Nice bod. I would've.

Nude.

He was mutilated. :(

Horrors! How did he ever get through life, missing his foreskin?! No doubt he spent thousands on therapy to get over it.

I am now close to someone who knew him. And I used to see him on Christopher Street.

Only six responses for the circumsion obsessives yo show up. For R6 the most important thing about Einstein was that he was cut.

Cisgender white males are CANCELLED!!

R5 I don’t know if they cover the making of this photograph in the doc, but here it is.

I always wondered how much talent there was though I liked his era, his own style and his populism. I used to go to that GMHC clinic with Haring mural in the can. I guess I'm a couple years younger than he would be if alive. That mural was quite good, in person! A lot of his large scale work was really good, in person. His art and iconography grew so quickly ubiqutous it was easy to be a snob about it.

But about half-way through watching this doc, something shifted and I saw Keith as a real artist, from his boyhood to his death. A real artist and with the talent to cut through the field and rise and rise and rise. He deserved his fame. It's very moving to watch him in the documentary, doing his art. There's nothing cynical about Haring and how he spent his life.

When Keith came to Pittsburgh in the 70s as a student, he was straight. I introduced him to his first boyfriend, a black kid. I helped him get a job slicing lunch meats at the New Diamond Market. Keith liked to party. We remained friends after he left for New York. I saw him a couple weeks before he died. His health had gone into a rapid decline. He was a great guy.

Fuck you, R2

He gifted some of his talent by painting an entire wall for free at a local art school I went too. It's still there I believe.

I remember , I was in a taxi heading back downtown from Washington Heights to get cocaine. We went by this big billboard Keith had done that said "Crack is Wack". The two straight people I was with burst out laughing and, as one, said "But AIDS is worse!"

R16, that billboard is still there

Great, R16. 3 drugged-out idiots, including one kween, laughing at people with AIDS. Class act all the way.

r13 introduced Keith to AIDS!

His system and style of art was instantly iconic and has remained so across a couple of generations. The elementary school I went to on suburban Long Island now has a huge Haring-esque mural installation on its front lawn. I sort of marvel at it - knowing that the radical queerness of the man, and the landscape of AIDS activism that his artwork came to signify, is lost on most people these days.

He was another Warhol . Not terribly talented at art but very talented in self promotion .

Maybe it's just the glasses, but he looks a little bit like Chasten.

Wassily Kandinsky did it all 40 years' before. But he didn't need his penis to advertise himself.

Neither of them had any aesthetic skill.

Anyone see the musical " Radiant Baby"?

Makes me yearn for the days when you could be a creative and make a living - or just live. All these docs about pre-90s art are premised on the fact that the artist was able to live a creative life. It’s gone, The artist Amy Sillman said in NY Times interview this week - young artists can’t make mistakes and take chances like they did in the 70s. The ravaging of corporatism / hypercapitalism has wiped out the artistic way of life.

I'm an artist on Patreon.

You can pay from as little $1.50 per month up to just whatever your heart desires!!!

"Talented"?

Did he publish an autobiography?

In gay shops Keith Haring merchandise was as prominent as Gay Pride merchandise in the late 80s and most of the 90s.

R29 It was prominent because it was in one colour and easy to steal.

It's not as if his 'child-like' style was detailed, sophisticated and hard to replicate.

It would have been interesting to see what direction his art would have taken if he had lived longer. Maybe his art would have become stagnant, maybe he would have continued to grow and inspire. I liked his work.

R31 I lived through that period. Everything was black and white and lots were screen-printed.

Colour and lithographic printing was too expensive

At least he took chances and put himself out there as a gay man with AIDS in a time when other gays like Liberace or Rock Hudson were hiding in the closet. The straight world wanted nothing to do with gays or AIDS and had someone more famous like Hudson come out about it, could have saved lives. No one cared until a famous actor died. Then finally the push for anti-viral drugs ball started rolling.

Keith collaborated with Graces Jones a couple of times. Like doing her stage make-up and paint her throne in the horror movie Vamp.

He was large of dong, but he couldn't live forever.

Can this BBC doc be watched in the US anywhere?

[Quote] When Keith came to Pittsburgh in the 70s as a student, he was straight.

Straight? Okay sure.

Very prematurely bald.

I had a childhood friend who moved to New York and was part of that scene. He told me he slept with Haring a number of times and talked about how big his dick was. He said that Haring was surprisingly nice, too.

Did anyone see the documentary on Richard Hambleton called Shadow Man? I really liked his street art and later landscapes.

r36 I found it on one of the gay torrent sites...

He had a big dick, as did the man who played him at the Public.

BBC video is available at VIMEO. Nothing new except almost everyone looks rough as hell. Chasing fame and fun in NYC and in the art world comes at a cost, I guess. And that's for the survivors. Whew.