“Keith Haring: Art is for Everybody” is the latest high-profile art exhibit to hit the Twin Cities.
The work of Keith Haring, the renowned artist and activist who died of AIDS in 1990 at the age of 31, is being shown at the Walker Art Center through Sept. 8. Minneapolis is the third city to see the exhibit as it tours North America.
The New York City artist’s style of graffiti and pop art took the world by storm as it permeated pop culture in the 1980s. On top of being an influential artist, Haring was an outspoken AIDS activist and advocate for social justice, which is conveyed through many of the pieces selected for this year’s exhibit.
The exhibit shows a variety of Haring’s incredible work, ranging from his eccentric murals that tackle sexuality and politics to his iconographies of dogs, the “Radiant Baby” and people dancing.
Siri Engberg, senior curator and director of visual arts at the Walker Art Center and the coordinating curator for the Haring exhibit, said this exhibit was a long time coming.
“It’s an exhibition that is long overdue,” Engberg said. “Keith Haring hasn’t had a major retrospective in the U.S. in well over 20 years. So it really was a chance to bring this body of work together in a way that really showed the totality of Haring’s career.”
Engberg said the team behind the exhibit highlighted Haring’s work as an activist while curating the exhibit.
“A lot of people know the crawling baby and the barking dog and some of these more iconic images, but they don’t know what a significant activist he was, and how impactful he was during his lifetime in terms of using his platform as an artist who was gaining more fame and recognition to really make a difference,” Engberg said.
The name of the exhibit reflects Haring’s passion for making art accessible to all, whether it be through his graffiti on the New York City subway or encouraging children to engage with art.
“The title of the Walker exhibition is ‘Art is for Everybody,’ and I think that that phrase is really not about sanitizing art so that it’s pleasing to everybody in a singular form, but that he was trying to reach different people and educate different people in different ways,” Meehleder said.
Haring’s work is lauded in part because of how recognizable and singular his art style is. LeAnn Qie, an art major at the University, described the appeal of Haring’s art style.
“I really like his art,” Qie said. “Because it’s simplistic it has a certain charm to it that makes me really adore it. That is, I feel like, something a lot of us artists strive for is one day to be famous enough for people to recognize you from your work. So I think it’s awesome.”
If you are a fan of Haring or contemporary art in general, “Art is for Everybody” is an exhibit you should seek out expeditiously.
