I remember the first time I “met” Keith Haring.
I was ten years old, parked in front of the television, watching Dan Rather on CBS Evening News. That alone was unusual. Because, in our house, the nightly news was usually delivered by Peter Jennings over on ABC World News Tonight.
But for whatever reason, on that particular night, we switched channels. And that small, random deviation from our regularly-scheduled programming ended up changing more than I could have understood at the time.
Because that was the night I was introduced to Keith Haring.
I didn’t have the language for it yet. I couldn’t have told you about pop art, or graffiti as cultural resistance, or the democratization of art. I was just a kid. But I knew what I liked. And I liked what I saw.
Haring’s figures were simple. Bold. Alive.
Radiant babies. Barking dogs. Dancing bodies that looked like they were vibrating right off the canvas.
Even then, I understood something instinctively:
These weren’t just drawings. They were messages.
Haring’s work first gained notoriety in the New York City subway stations. He turned empty ad panels into canvases, chalk in hand, creating art in real-time for commuters who might not otherwise step foot inside an art gallery or museum.
Strangers rushing to work became his audience. The city itself became his gallery.
To my ten-year-old brain, his art felt rebellious and joyful at the same time. His work looked like modern-day cave paintings to me. But instead of telling stories of survival, they told stories of energy, connection, and pride.
As I got older, I learned what I couldn’t fully grasp back then. That beneath the playful lines was a sense of urgency and weight. Haring worked during a time when New York was alive with creativity and also reckoning with crisis. His work took on themes of love, sex, power, and the AIDS epidemic. It was activism disguised as accessibility.
He made it impossible to look away, even when the message was uncomfortable.
That’s what made Keith Haring and his work so powerful. He didn’t separate art from life. He didn’t wait for permission. He showed up, again and again, and made the work where people already were.
Looking back, that moment in front of the TV wasn’t just about discovering an artist. It was my first understanding that art didn’t have to live behind glass or inside quiet rooms. It could be immediate. Public. Alive.
Art could meet me exactly where I was.
Decades later, that still feels like the lesson.
Because those lines, as simple as they were, didn’t stay contained. They moved. Across subway platforms. Around the world. On public walls and in private art collections.
Haring’s work found a ten-year-old kid in a living room who wasn’t even supposed to be watching that channel. And it burned a hole in my imagination.
Keith Haring was here. And his legacy lives on….
Keep calm and keep his candles lit!
Clint 🌈✌️
COLLIDE PRESS is a reader-supported publication.
Please consider becoming a Paid Subscriber or Patron.
MAY OFFER = 25% OFF ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTIONS
thru 05-31-26
FROM THE ARCHIVES
BORN THIS WAY ON THIS DAY
05-04 = Keith Haring (1958-1990) = American artist 🌈
05-04 = Lance Bass (1979- ) = American singer, dancer, and producer 🌈
05-04 = Lincoln Kirstein (1907-1996) = American writer, impresario, art connoisseur, philanthropist, and New York City Ballet co-founder 🌈
MAN CRUSH OF THE DAY
“I don’t think art is propaganda; it should be something that liberates the soul, provokes the imagination and encourages people to go further. It celebrates humanity instead of manipulating it.”
Keith Haring
Brian, I just guess Keith had a childhood love of Jelly Babies sweets/candies/gummies (even Haribo produce their versions) The vast majority of 🏴🇬🇧 folks would automatically say Jelly Babies when they see his caricatures. Cheers DougT 🏴🇬🇧
My thanks to you for the videos of Keith Haring and his work. Sometimes, we just need to be reminded that being gay for way too many was a death sentence. Yes, we have been more welcome openly than during his time, but there are still groups who just see only their warped views as truth, and anyone who does not agree with them must be eliminated.
I was not out during that period, but it had a sting to me that I have lived with ever since. My concern is that it may return unless we are constantly vigilant about our future.
Thanks agin for the video.