#keith harring

ARTIST RESEARCH: KEITH HARRING

Keith Harring (May 4, 1958 – February 16, 1990) was an American artist who came to prominence out of the New York graffiti scene during the 1980′s. His early influences included the likes of Dr. Seuss and Walt Disney, as well as his father, who was an amateur cartoon artist. 

Harring’s style became a familiar sight in the New York City subways, and as his popularity rose, he began producing much larger works, in a very stripped down yet highly energetic style. 

Much of his work was embodied by social activism, namely AIDS awareness and the promotion of safe-sex ideals. A gay man himself, he was a victim of the AIDS crisis in the 80′s and the ignorance and stigma around it. 

Speaking on the AIDS crisis and the influence it had on ‘The Downward Spiral’ track ‘Heresy”, Trent Reznor has said: 

“I was trying to explore some of the paranoia I have as a sexually active person in the age of AIDS,” he says of “Heresy.”

“I guess I feel cheated for not growing up in a more liberated era. At the same time, what gets me mad is the way the right wing has used the ‘convenience’ of this epidemic in helping to promote their own agenda.”

Harring spoke of and spread awareness of the AIDS epidemic at a time when the country and the politicians who ran it refused to acknowledge its existence. Despite the virus being identified in 1981, President Ronald Reagan himself did not even utter the word in public until the end of his two term presidency. This hesitancy to act would inevitably only worsen the situation. As the epidemic spread like wildfire, so too did the ignorance and ostracism directed towards the gay community. 

Harring himself would eventually die from the disease in 1990, at the age of 31.