For Immediate Release                                     Arcadia
University Art Gallery



KEITH HARING: SUBWAY DRAWINGS  March 31- April 27, 2011

Notes from the Underground
Tuesday, April 5, 6:30 PM, Stiteler Auditorium, Murphy Hall
Kermit Oswald, childhood friend of Haring and President of the Keith
Haring  Foundation from 1991-2009
Carlo McCormick, writer, independent curator, and senior editor of
Paper magazine

A public reception will follow in the art gallery.


Glenside, PA – Arcadia University Art Gallery is pleased to present
“Keith Haring: Subway Drawings,” an exhibition celebrating the
thirtieth anniversary of the emergence of these seminal works by this
artist, born in Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1958 and raised in
Kutztown).

The twelve examples on view date from most prolific period (1980-1983)
of larger pool numbering in the thousands executed with chalk on black
sheets of paper pasted over un-renewed advertising panels in the New
York City subway. Begun spontaneously (“I remember noticing a panel in
the Times Square Station and immediately going above ground and buying
chalk,” wrote Haring), the project fueled his early work in continued
into 1985, long after he had achieved international commercial and
critical success.

Often produced before an audience of commuters, the drawings appeared
at a rate of sometimes 40 a day, eventually to be covered with new ads
when not torn or cut from their locations by admirers. The routine
loss of these works, in fact, became an incentive for their
replenishment and a catalyst for constant reinvention as they went
from becoming, in Haring’s words, “more of a responsibility than a
hobby.” While many were documented by photographer Tseng Kwong Chi
(whom Haring would phone upon returning back to his studio to provide
the their locations) most of the drawings went unrecorded, thus
creating one of the most epic and ephemeral projects in the history of
the city.

The examples included in this exhibition can be regarded as relics of
a generous experiment “an ever-changing exhibition available to the
public 24 hours a day for the price of token,” as curator Barry
Blinderman wrote in 1990. Unsigned and undated, they are distinguished
as much by Haring’s unmistakable hand as they are by the vigor of his
body. In a preface for a 1985 exhibition catalog, Brion Gysin referred
to Haring’s broad, quick line as “carved…like the one the man made
when he first used it to cut what he wanted out of the air in the back
of a cave.” (Haring never relied on preparatory sketches for his works
on paper, canvas, or the many public murals he eventually realized
before his death at the age of 31 due to AIDS-related complications in
1990.)

The subway, for Haring, was a laboratory for communication and
engagement. Inspired by the contact with a diverse (non-art) audience
it enabled, Haring regarded the Manhattan Transit Authority as an
ideal platform for a vocabulary of figures (such as “radiant baby,”
“barking dog,” and “hovering angel”) that, due to prolific repetition
and permutation, assumed the identity of potent signs. These
pictographs managed to address a range of themes, both topical and
universal, in a manner ideally suited to the pace and viewing
conditions of commuters. Inspired both by cartoons and graffiti, the
subway drawings created an unprecedented category of their own.
Although Haring was arrested many times for vandalism, whatever damage
he may have done was superficial and reversible. (Many of the cops
that hand-cuffed Haring became his fans.)  The largest work in the
exhibition—a 4 ft. x 8 ft. plywood panel tagged several times with
spray paint, Haring’s babies and dogs, a crown by SAMO (a.k.a.
Jean-Michel Basquiat), a poster advertising a performance by Larry
Rivers, and a torn AIDS flier about “high risk groups”—helps
underscore the difference between graffiti and Haring’s subway
drawings, while also serving as a time capsule for the early 1980s.

Ultimately, Haring’s project was a synthesis of performative process,
automatic writing, and democratic access. Critical to understanding
Haring’s overall career and his efforts to connect street culture,
commercial practices, and fine art, the subway drawings have proved to
be influential to subsequent generations of artists ranging from
Takashi Murakami, Banksy, and Shepard Fairey, to name only a few.

In an attempt to contextualize these drawings and explore their
relevance, Arcadia University Art Gallery will introduce the
exhibition with Notes from the Underground, a public program featuring
commentary by two individuals who witnessed this continuous succession
of imagery first hand. Scheduled for Tuesday, April 5, the event will
begin at 6:30 p.m. with a presentation by Kermit Oswald, Haring’s
childhood friend and president of the Keith Haring Foundation between
1991 and 2009. His remarks will be followed by commentary from Carlo
McCormick, New York-based writer, independent curator, and senior
editor of Paper magazine. Following their illustrated presentations,
Oswald and McCormick will then discuss the subway drawings in relation
to the evolution of Haring's practice and its legacy.

A public reception will follow in the art gallery (7:30 PM).

Gallery Hours: Tuesday, Wednesday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Thursday 10 a.m.
to 8 p.m., Friday 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., and Weekends noon to 4 p.m., as
well as by appointment.

For more information: Contact Arcadia University Art Gallery at
215-572-2131 (or 215-572-2133) or visit www.arcadia.edu/gallery.