Sunny Side Up: The Positive Profundity of Keith Haring
There was something “up” about Keith Haring, born “sunny side up,” as he was born unoriginally facing up in the posterior position, seemingly unique from the day he entered the world during the rise of the 1960’s counterculture. As a child, Haring admired the works of Dr. Seuss, Disney, and the Loony Tunes, and he developed a penchant for drawing. In 1978, he moved from Pennsylvania to New York City to pursue a career in art. In the 1980s, New York City needed a revival of pop culture as the Andy Warhol era was coming to a close. Keith Haring was a gay man who helped spark this resurgence of New York pop culture the city was missing. Keith Haring had something to say about how he viewed the world, and he would send these messages through his art, which were posted all around New York City for everyone to see. He created hundreds of drawings about social issues, most notably the rising AIDS epidemic taking place all over New York and the United States at the time. Keith Haring was an artist and social activist whose art reveals both the struggles that people inflicted with AIDS experienced and continue to experience, and the simple joy that queer men and women in an ideal world can and should enjoy. Haring also implies that all of society must participate in the fight against AIDS for marginalized groups to gain these joys instead of enduring numerous struggles.
AIDS was an epidemic that lacked awareness and notoriety, and it silently took over the country during the 1980s. As Catherine Lord states in her article “Inside the Body Politic: 1980-Present,” she describes the beginning of the AIDS breakout as “no one but small groups of white urban gay men paid much attention to the announcement in 1981 that a puzzling new disease had erupted in San Francisco and Los Angeles — the gay flu, or Gay Related Immune Deficiency Syndrome” (Lord 34). Because of this, early responses to the disease were lacking as the virus was more prevalent among social groups considered marginalized by mainstream society, including prostitutes, sex workers, drug addicts, and gay men. When AIDS finally started to take over the “normal” population of America, the media and others started taking note of the disease “and its effect upon so called ‘innocent’ victims, meaning homosexuals and children” (Lord 34). As heterosexual people were labelled “innocent,” the media indirectly characterized those groups with AIDS as “guilty” even though those people were guilty of nothing. These marginalized communities needed a spark to get people aware, educated, and talking about the virus so that society’s view on these groups would change, and “normal” people in society would join the fight.
Keith Haring was that spark.
Haring began his drawing career in the subways of New York City, creating art of his own type; cartoon-like figures, sending a message specifically to the public for the purpose of raising awareness about the AIDS crisis. The kind of art Keith Haring created is suggested by his own comments on his work: once when riding the subway, he “saw this empty black panel where an advertisement was supposed to go. I immediately realized that this was the perfect place to draw. I went back above ground to a card shop and bought a box of white chalk, went back down and did a drawing on it. It was perfect-soft black paper; chalk drew on it really easily” (Cahan 129). All over New York City, all types of black panels meant for advertisements were replaced with drawings from Keith Haring. Filling these panels with his art meant that more people would see his work and awareness would increase. One intelligent way to draw attention was in public spaces where millions of people flow in and out.
Haring’s art was unlike any other because of his unique cartoon-like characters and his calling out of roles within society. One drawing in particular, “Ignorance = Fear” (1989), sends a message to not only gay men or those inflicted with AIDS, but to the greater population. “Ignorance = Fear” was Haring’s image linking three individuals who are of an unidentifiable race and gender, representing people inflicted with AIDS. The three characters are marked with a pink “X” across their chest, symbolizing AIDS patients, and are covering their ears, mouths and eyes. These characters are in a place of discomfort and are too afraid to stand up and say something because they fear being ridiculed, put down, or seen as guilty by society due to the stigmas that went along with AIDS. Haring’s work forces viewers to realize the struggles that these marginalized people silently go through, and he feels that something needs to change in order to relieve the groups suffering in society.
Secondly, the words displayed in his image, “IGNORANCE = FEAR” and “SILENCE = DEATH”, have a profound significance to the work. Most people in society seemed ignorant and unaware of the individual’s struggles when it came to coping with AIDS, and AIDS victims often remained silent due to the fear of being tagged with the stigmas that went along with the disease. Haring wanted to highlight this and make people realize that they are unjustly afraid of what they don’t know or understand, yet at the same time implying that everyone needs to stand up and fight. The “Silence = Death” portion of the image represents how the lack of recognition and awareness will lead to more people suffering and dying. Haring suggests that society should not just ignore these stigmas that go along with AIDS, and should stand up and join the fight against AIDS to raise awareness. In this particular image, Haring calls out all walks of life to act up and fight the fact that a too large of a percentage of the population were living in unfair and difficult circumstances, especially with the stereotypes and stigmas that go along with queerness and AIDS. Otherwise, more people and future generations will continue to suffer from AIDS.
Additionally, the drawing “Untitled” (1986) depicts four characters made up of similar body types performing similar body movements, only differentiated by the two symbols representing the gender binary on their heads and their colors. Because the figures are nearly identical, these symbols are essential for the viewer to determine the gender of the character. If not for the symbols, there would be no difference between these characters’ genders, reflecting Haring’s belief in gender being irrelevant and nonessential, and bodies intertwining with any other body, regardless of gender. But our world puts these symbols on our heads, and people make assumptions and judgments based on heteronormative biases.
Also, the four figures are all a different color which generally represent all types of races in our society. These characters are dancing in harmony, simply enjoying their identities. But there is a big problem in society which prohibits certain groups of people from dancing and being proud of who they are. According to Catherine Lord, the way that the media approached people with AIDS was “to photograph people with AIDS — the more visibly ill the better — to scapegoat the supposed culprits in disease transmission” (Lord 34). There are marginalized groups like people suffering from AIDS, or other minority racial groups, that may be afraid to dance in the public sphere celebrating their identity because society views their identity as “people with AIDS” and “people giving AIDS to ‘innocent,’ heterosexual people.” But Haring worked to fix this. He wanted to rid society of the stigma of correlating AIDS to homosexual identity. Haring countered the media and told the public through his art that people with AIDS are just like any other group in society, which is why Haring’s cartoon-like characters depicting AIDS patients look no different from other characters of Haring’s. As the media was trying to put to shame a group of people, Haring counteracted and fought for what he thought was right: that all humans are equals regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, and that everyone should be allowed to join the dancing of being proud of one’s own identity.
Furthermore, one of Haring’s most powerful works of art is called “Silence=Death.” In this drawing, there are an abundance of stick figures cramped and confined in a black square with a central pink triangle. Similar to “Ignorance = Fear,” this drawing also shows stick figures covering their ears, eyes, and mouths, representing people enduring the struggle of AIDS who may feel cast away by others due to societal stigmas. Inside a black square of darkness and silence in which many marginalized groups felt like they were inside, Haring uses a pink triangle to shed light on people who may think that they are forced to stay silent since they aren’t heard understood or recognized by society. Haring wants this triangle to pop out to the eyes of passersby and motivate one to act up and make a difference by raising awareness of AIDS. Historically, the pink triangle served as a symbol during the Holocaust to single out individuals for their queerness. Haring took this symbol and transformed it from a symbol that oppressed a group of people to an empowering symbol suggesting that one should support marginalized groups struggling with AIDS. Throughout the AIDS crisis, the pink triangle continued to serve as a symbol for Keith Haring’s fight for raising awareness of AIDS, and is seen on many of his artworks including both “Ignorance = Fear” and “Silence = Death.”
The work of Keith Haring continues to make an impact on today’s society even though it has been decades since the Keith Haring era of art took place in the mid to late 1980s. Haring’s beliefs have caught on with celebrities such as Kanye West, Miley Cyrus, and Rihanna. All three of these celebrities found inspiration in Haring’s work, beliefs, and social commentary. Haring truly stood up for what he believed in, and fought all of his life for what he thought was right through his art. He fought hard and argued against the United States media because he knew that they were spreading the wrong narrative. People like Haring influence generations of activists even in our day because of the type of man he was — a resilient leader and fighter — which is why popular culture and celebrities display gratitude towards Haring.
Overall, Keith Haring was different from everyone else since the day he was born. He had both a strong passion for art and strong opinions on societal issues, and he was not afraid to share either one with the world. Haring possessed such unique qualities that led to his profound influence and impact on the world. He was an activist, a leader, a fighter, an artist, and an influencer, and maybe these qualities did come from the fact that he was born an uncommon way.
Works Cited
Cahan, Susan. “Artists Voices: Introduction.” Contemporary Art and Multicultural Education, New Museum of Contemporary Art, 1996, p. 129.
Lord, Catherine, and Richard Meyer. Inside the Body Politic: 1980-Present. Art & Queer Culture, Phaidon, 2013, pp. 29–53. Print.
Millar, Iain. “The Graffiti Star and the Forgotten Masses.” Art Newspaper, vol. 17, Jan. 2008, p. 46. EBSCOhost
