Review of Artist Keith Haring – The Legacy
By: David K. Montoya
Welcome back to the third and final art review of Keith Haring, in the first part, we took at look at his artist career. Then last month, we covered what is known in the art world as Haring's Mature Period, and his amazing creations he crafted in that time.
This month, we will talk a little about the legacy of Keith Haring, and what he did for future generations for simply being who he was, not only as an artist, but as a person as well.
As we look back on the subject, it is safe to safe that most understand the philosophy of Street Art as a poetic and artistic symbol of insurrection against what was believed to be the norm in the art world at the time. For Haring it went deeper than that and ran over in to the snobbish high class men of the fine art world itself.
Although while the untrained rural folk art had in fact found its place in the community, urban street art only became recognized with importance in the art world after it made an impact on popular culture in the 1980s—and that was solely after the commercial success of Haring (and other great street artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat).
But, it was Keith Haring's public success that gave validity and legitimacy to all of street art. It was therefore deemed to be worthy of exhibition in and among fine art galleries and museums, as it had not been so previously considered as such.
As we speak about Keith Haring's legacy, we have to address how powerful his influence was (and still continues to be) on future artists. It was Haring subjective and cartoon like style that paved a new path for underground artist to take center stage, one of the best examples which comes to mind is cartoonist Matt Groening. Groening is the mega successful creator of cartoon like Simpsons and Futurama which is a direct effect of Haring's legacy.
Today, in the almost second decade of the new millennium, art like murals and urban graffiti have become a sensational world-wide anomaly! With leading factors like published periodicals and websites solely devoted to the said forms of art has opened even more doors to budding artists that would have had otherwise not been introduced to this medium of expressionism.
As a whole, it was the successful street, murals and urban graffiti artists of the early 80s, like Haring, that created the blue-prints to future street-to-gallery creators of today ( for example are Shepard Fairey, Banksy, and Swoon). As the torch has been handed over to a new generation, the image of these artists are one of being rebels, facing a harsh reality of censorship and for some even risking imprisonment for displaying their often politically charged works in both public and private areas for presentation.
To some, these artist are living an antagonistic lifestyle, but in doing such they have been able to transact more lucrative deals from their exhibition and receive better compensation for their work—now welcomed among the elitists of the fine art world, thanks to the amazing art and legacy of Keith Haring.
