Keith Haring twenty years later

Keith Haring was an American artist who became famous for his ‘Subway Drawings’, ephemeral sketches traced out in chalk on blank billboards in metro subways.

He was also known for his relationship with the artistic movements which intended to shake up the traditional gallery system: graffiti artists, the new Hip Hop culture and the counterculture of street artists (the avant-garde art common in New York towards the end of the 1980's, which later adopted the name 'Street Art').

In 1982 Haring’s art started to arouse interest; so much so that public commissions from museums and cities all over the world came to vie for his murals, whose graphic simplicity made them ideal for mass communication. Haring’s murals were a new form of communication, a ‘visual language’ where the  graphic and verbal signs come together in a sequence of ideograms that is easily accessible to everybody: ‘My drawings don't try to imitate life, they try to create life ... that's a much more so-called primitive idea ... I don't use colours and lines to try to look life-like".

The idea of painting a mural in Pisa came about by chance when a young student from Pisa met Haring in the street in New York. The theme is that of peace and harmony in the world, illustrated by the connections and joints between the thirty figures which, much like a jigsaw, cover 180 square metres on the south wall of the Church of Sant’Antonio.   

Each figure represents a different aspect of the world at peace: the "humanized" scissors represent the cooperation between men in defeating the serpent (i.e. evil), which was gnawing at the head of the figure next to it; the woman with a baby in her arms is an image of maternity and the two men supporting the dolphin symbolize man's relationship with nature.

It is Haring’s only work that, from the very beginning, is meant to be permanent display, not ephemeral or bound to disappear in use or in the seriality of mass communication. This explains why the artist spent a full week to create it and not the one or two days he usually took to paint the other murals.

"I have drawn everything pertaining to humanity in this mural... My way of working without preliminary sketches is very direct and immediate... I began in the top left-hand corner, created the first image... step by step, after each figure I had to decide what to put next".

When asked how this work should be entitled, Haring replied "I don't know. Titles? A difficult question... I never give anything a title... this painting hasn’t even got one, but if it were to have a title it would be something... something like "Tuttomondo”, a word that sums up his continuous search for contact and identification with the public, in this particular case exemplified by the yellow character walking, or running, placed at the centre of the composition on the same grounds as a hypothetical passer-by.

The vitality and energy typical of Haring, and his relentless creative passion, are evident in the thirty characters of the mural and, a few months prior to passing away from AIDS, enabled him to leave a work that is primarily an anthem to life.

On the 16th of February, right under the watchful eye of the mural, in celebration of his art and the universal messages of Tuttomondo, visitors are invited to take part in a lively evening of music, dance and entertainment dedicated to Haring and to all who share those values.

The event line-up includes a performance with DJs and breakers and the opportunity for those who witnessed the opera being created to tell of their experiences on film. The purpose of the evening is to recreate the atmosphere felt in the city that week in the month of June, when Haring created the painting, involving everyone who turned up curious to see what was going on.

Programme

16th February 2010

KEITH HARING
Twenty years later

6.00pm to 10.00pm
Largo Zandonai (in front of Haring's mural)
Performance with DJs and breakers (street performers)

KEITH AND I
Video camera available to everyone who has a photo, recording, autograph or testimony related to the creation of the mural

8.00pm
Courtyard of the Church of Sant’Antonio
Pancakes for everybody

8.00pm to 10.00pm
Pisa Province Auditorium
Via Silvio Pellico, 6

Screening
- The Universe of Keith Haring
- Tuttomondo, by A. Soldani – Interferenze productions

Free admission to full capacity

Saturday 13 February

Stazione Leopolda from 4pm onwards
Young artists meet and work for a mural in via F.Da Buti

Info:
Comune di Pisa Cultural Office, tel. +39 050 910373